S4 Cap. Regulatory News (SFOR)

27 August 2020

S4 Capital plc

("S4Capital" or "the Company")

Brightblue to merge with MightyHive

MightyHive strengthens its analytics and measurement capabilities, adds talent and expands global footprint

S4Capital plc (SFOR.L), the tech-led, new age, new era digital advertising and marketing services company, announces that Brightblue Consulting, an award-winning UK-based data analytics and measurement consultancy, will merge with MightyHive, S4Capital's data and digital media practice. The merger builds upon MightyHive's recently launched data practice, adding deep probabilistic attribution expertise to its experienced and rapidly-growing team.

According to MicroStrategy's "2020 Global State of Enterprise Analytics," 65% of respondents plan to increase their analytics investments in the next year. This merger continues to build on S4Capital and MightyHive's ability to support that need.

Brightblue was founded in 2012 by Michael Cross after over a decade of consulting around predictive modeling and marketing ROI effectiveness at WPP agencies and beyond. Brightblue was established to help clients grow their sales and profits using a range of mathematical and econometric techniques to allow marketers to gain greater insight into their digital audiences. These approaches help clients find efficiencies; optimise their marketing spend; and drive more profitable growth. The company employs over 25 highly experienced mathematicians and econometricians working for clients including Co-op, Royal Mail, Secret Escapes, Hiscox, NHS, LV, and Habito.

S4Capital Executive Chairman Sir Martin Sorrell said, "We are delighted to welcome Mike and his colleagues to S4Capital. Data, particularly first-party data, is at the heart of S4Capital's 'holy trinity' business model. Brightblue's skills in making sense of it and using it to drive profitable growth are a timely addition to our client-focused service offering. We believe the measurement and modeling systems in our industry are in dire need of innovation. They are either too slow and traditional and no longer fit for purpose, or too narrowly confined to digital channels. We look forward to disrupting this multi-billion dollar industry with a modern new-era approach which is faster, better, and cheaper."

"As we head into a post-cookie world without many existing forms of measurement, Brightblue's predictive modelling solutions better prepare us for a future where marketers will have an ever-increasing demand for advice around effectiveness," said Christopher S. Martin, Co-Founder and COO of MightyHive, and S4Capital Executive Director.

Michael Cross, CEO and Founder of Brightblue added, "We couldn't be more excited to be joining MightyHive and S4Capital. Our shared entrepreneurial, results-driven cultures and our joint ambition to disrupt the existing industry models are a perfect match. Our ability to provide unrivalled marketing evaluation in days to our clients aligns very much with the S4Capital faster, better, and cheaper approach, and we very much look forward to the integration and subsequent global reach that MightyHive and S4Capital deliver."

Enquiries

About MightyHive

MightyHive is the leading data and digital media consultancy that helps marketers take control. MightyHive delivers sustained results from the ground up through advisory for business transformation, privacy-first data strategy, and digital media services.

The company is headquartered in San Francisco, with a team of consultants, platform experts, data scientists, and marketing engineers in 19 countries and 24 cities around the world. In 2018, MightyHive merged with S4Capital plc (SFOR.L), a tech-led new age/new era digital advertising and marketing services company established by Sir Martin Sorrell.

About Brightblue Consulting

Brightblue isa London based analytics specialist which help businesses drive incremental profit from their data. We provide predictive analytics that enable clients to make informed decisions based on data and industry knowledge. We specialise in modelling sales for clients, helping them measure all their marketing, optimising investments and advising on budget levels to achieve scale. Brightblue has a proven track record showing a 30% improvement in marketing Return on Investment for clients' spend, delivering between £1m and £17m in incremental profit per project, and doing this 80% faster and more frequently / monthly than the competition. We work with companies like HSBC, Co-op, LV, Three, Habito, Uswitch, Secret Escapes and reed.co.uk to help them optimise their budgets.

About S4Capital

S4Capital plc (SFOR.L) is the tech-led, new age, new era digital advertising and marketing services company, established by Sir Martin Sorrell in May 2018.

Its strategy is to build a purely digital advertising and marketing services business for global, multinational, regional, local clients and millennial-driven influencer brands. This will be achieved initially by integrating leading businesses in three practice areas: first-party data, digital content, digital media planning and buying, along with an emphasis on "faster, better, cheaper" executions in an always-on consumer-led environment, with a unitary structure.

Digital is by far the fastest-growing segment of the advertising market. S4Capital estimates that in 2019 digital accounted for approximately 47.5% or $275 billion of total global advertising spend of $550-600 billion (excluding about $400 billion of trade support, the primary target of the Amazon advertising platform), and projects that by 2022 this share will grow to approximately 55-60%.

S4Capital combined with MediaMonks, the leading AdAge A-listed creative digital content production company led by Victor Knaap and Wesley ter Haar, in July 2018, and with MightyHive, the market-leading programmatic solutions provider for future thinking marketers and agencies, led by Peter Kim and Christopher S. Martin, in December 2018.

In April 2019, MightyHive merged with ProgMedia to expand operations into Latin America and MediaMonks acquired film studio Caramel Pictures to expand content studio capabilities. In June 2019, MediaMonks announced a planned merger with Australia-based BizTech, a leading marketing transformation and customer experience company. In August 2019, MediaMonks merged with Amsterdam-based digital influencer marketing agency IMA. In October 2019, MediaMonks merged with Firewood Marketing, the largest digital marketing agency based in Silicon Valley, that was recently ranked, along with MediaMonks, as one of the fastest growing agencies by Adweek, and MightyHive merged with award-winning UK-based digital analytics, biddable media and data science company ConversionWorks and South Korea-based data and analytics consultancy MightyHive Korea. In November 2019, MediaMonks announced its merger with Delhi-based content creation and production company WhiteBalance and then with fully integrated digital agency Circus Marketing in January 2020.

In May 2020, MightyHive announced a merger with Digodat, one of the leading Latin American data and analytics consultancies, and in June 2020, MightyHive announced its merger with Lens10, a leading Australian digital strategy and analytics consultancy. In July 2020, MightyHive announced a merger with Orca Pacific, a market leading full-service Amazon agency and boutique consultancy firm based out of Seattle.

On 16 July 2020 S4Capital announced the successful placing of 36,766,642 new ordinary shares at a price of 315p raising approximately £116m gross proceeds which will be used for further expansion and M&A purposes.

Victor, Wesley, Pete, Christopher and Peter Rademaker (formerly Chief Financial Officer of MediaMonks, now Chief Financial Officer of S4Capital), all joined the S4Capital Board as Directors. The S4Capital Board also includes Rupert Faure Walker, Paul Roy, Daniel Pinto, Sue Prevezer, Elizabeth Buchanan, Scott Spirit, Naoko Okumoto, Margaret Ma Connolly and Miles Young.

The Company has [2,650] people in 30 countries across the Americas, Europe, the Middle East and Africa and Asia-Pacific and a market capitalisation of approximately [£1.8] billion (c.[$2.3] billion), and would rank well into the FTSE 250. It has achieved Unicorn status in a little over one year, unique in the advertising and marketing services industry.

Sir Martin was CEO of WPP for 33 years, building it from a £1 million "shell" company in 1985 into the world's largest advertising and marketing services company with a market capitalisation of over £16 billion on the day he left. Today its market capitalisation is [less than £7.5] billion. Prior to that Sir Martin was Group Financial Director of Saatchi & Saatchi Company plc for nine years.