S4 Capital Share Discussion Threads

[citys2874] 15/5/2024 08:15

news out this morning for SFOR and HTG (WOW) see the win for HTG

[wallywoo] 15/5/2024 07:52

Wow, another near 19m shares being added today. The number of shares in issue over 600m now (255m shares in 2018 on floating).


No wonder this is ramped so much by soo many suspect poster's.


Just like I have said on STXs BB, the company that issues shares like sweets care little for their shareholders.


Be very careful here. Turnover down, debt up, shares in issue up, company never made a profit since floating in 2018. All really bad for the share price.

[nige co] 15/5/2024 07:48

"The first approach was rebuffed and Penn is understood to have made a series of sequentially lower offers for his British rival, with the last worth around $700 million, as the UK-listed S4’s share price fell. S4’s stock is down around 55 per cent since this time last year and the business has a market value of around £365 million.
Sorrell has described the offers as not “credible” but those familiar with the matter say Penn, 70, is serious."



I wonder what the higher offers was? Not sure anyone would make a lower offer if the higher offer was dismissed our of hand, it makes little sense.

[hades1] 14/5/2024 10:37

Once merged with any existing agency group it will make money.
They want Media Monks and the expertise the agencies don't have.
Senior staff will all get an earnout package as usual.
They all want (need) a deal it's just finding the price with the sharpest negotiator in town.
They all have to do that deal ahead of their agency group competitors.
Suspect the original bid was SMS showing all it's for sale.
SMS will claim victory with the right bid

[wallywoo] 14/5/2024 09:57

Come on guys, flog this dead horse. You have to be quick. A company that is losing business and cash as fast as Sfor, won't stay up for long!!!

[halfpenny] 14/5/2024 09:21

SMS is always looking for a Deal thats in his DNA.

Expect an offer soon at these low prices they are a bargain for a Suitor who needs to be into AI on a Global basis.

Offer maybe sooner than we think as SMS holds his cards close to his chest!!

A guide will be when they go above 200 day MA. Then a Suitor is in play!!

[nige co] 14/5/2024 09:16

Morning Hades, I see Sorrell's golden share as a good thing for shareholder, protection against a low ball bid.

[hades1] 14/5/2024 09:08

It's vulnerable to a bid at this point despite his golden share - At the right price of course?
Rates are also turning

[halfpenny] 14/5/2024 08:50

They would need to be growing Revenue to get top value 250p.
This growth is predicted H2 still weeks away!!

[nige co] 14/5/2024 07:54

I think that Stagwell would have to offer at least a 50% - 50% joint merger valuing S4 at £1.5bln or 257p per share, maybe that would appeal making the combined company much larger and give S4 a USA listing. Although, according to the March 22 WSJ report Sorrell rebuffed Stagwell's offers so far because they undervalued the company and he didn’t view Stagwell as a good strategic fit with his firm. Don't rule out private equity firm New Mountain who also have been showing interest according to the WSJ report.

[nige co] 14/5/2024 07:40

I think that Stagwell would have to offer at least a 50% - 50% joint merger valuing S4 at £1.5bln or 257p per share, maybe that would appeal making the combined company much larger and give S4 a USA listing. Although, according to the March 22 WSJ report Sorrell rebuffed Stagwell's offers so far because they undervalued the company and he didn’t view Stagwell as a good strategic fit with his firm. Don't rule out private equity firm New Mountain who also have been showing interest according to the WSJ report.

[halfpenny] 13/5/2024 22:30

SMS can sell and still be an Active Partner so its a Win Win for all.

Some say a 5x Sum needs to be proposed.

[tomke23] 13/5/2024 18:08

I think the only reason SMS would sell out was if his health prospects were poor. To him S4 being a success is a personal mission.

I was surprised that the technology business stream had poor performance. I thought that would be a high performing area.
Tom

[nige co] 13/5/2024 17:43

Hi Auson, I think top 3 US funds stands approximately @18.5% but this was a month ago. Could do with Rackers posting an update.

[auson1] 13/5/2024 16:46

Nige Co,

This is likely why those US funds have been buying in and I think lending the shares out to shorters. Do you know what the running total percentage the 3 now own, must be 20% or close to ?

[nige co] 13/5/2024 16:05

There's potential for a bidding war with both Stagwell & P/E both already shown interest.

At Q1 results Sorrell said that he knows that P/E has plenty of dry powder, with interest rates about to fall, this will fuel M&A.

Sorrell is no fool, serious bidders would have to start at multiples of current share price.

[john09] 13/5/2024 15:02

Its ok got it

[john09] 13/5/2024 15:02

Thanks where is the article from and when was it published?

J

[nige co] 13/5/2024 14:20

John09, there you go... Not sure why the link wouldn't open, I've just tried it and it opened.

Clinton aide’s marketing empire has its tanks on Europe’s lawn

Mark Penn, the founder of Stagwell, once worked for the WPP group and is now said to have cast an interested eye over Sir Martin Sorrell’s S4 Capital

Mark Penn, the American founder of Stagwell, made a merger offer to Sir Martin Sorrell’s company last year. The proposal for S4 Capital, his former boss’s marketing group, was not made public and only revealed last month.

The first approach was rebuffed and Penn is understood to have made a series of sequentially lower offers for his British rival, with the last worth around $700 million, as the UK-listed S4’s share price fell. S4’s stock is down around 55 per cent since this time last year and the business has a market value of around £365 million.

Sorrell has described the offers as not “credible̶1; but those familiar with the matter say Penn, 70, is serious.

It is perhaps inevitable that Sorrell and Penn, both coming from the WPP behemoth, both running challenger businesses that started around the same time and both hungrily acquisitive in the same space, would clash heads eventually.

The relationship between the two veteran marketeers is thought to be strained. As someone who knows both well remarked about the deal that went nowhere: “Mark used to work for Martin [as part of the WPP group of companies]. I don’t know how Martin would feel about working for Mark. Maybe that’s the issue.”

Will Penn continue the pursuit of S4? He does not want to discuss the bid. But the former adviser to President Clinton and former chief strategy officer of Microsoft is setting his sights on Europe and makes no secret of his plans to grow his portfolio of companies here, on Sorrell’s home turf.

Last year revenue from the region grew by 17 per cent. It currently makes up a fifth of total sales and Penn would like to increase that to 40 per cent. Stagwell has bought two businesses here so far this year, Sidekick and What’s Next Partners.

He takes what he describes as a Noah’s Ark approach to acquisitions — “No more than two of a kind” — unlike at WPP where “the problem was that they would get five and six of a kind and then there would be too much competition”.

Sitting in the large glass offices of Stagwell’s new European headquarters, which opened on London’s South Bank last month, his jovial conversation is peppered with famous names. His affability belies his reputation as a steely, sometimes controversial political operator, who also steered Tony Blair to a third general election victory.

“We had lots of companies with offices here that were little disparate dots and they didn’t really have a collective being. So they were getting small contracts,” Penn says.

Following the new office opening, businesses sit together on a vast floor of an office on the South Bank. It is, Penn says, a “shopping mall” for clients to dip into and being on one floor “horizontally” is, he suggests, an enormous boon for collaboration.
“People don’t really work together in marketing unless they know them, because they fundamentally don’t trust anybody but themselves,” he says. “It’s part of the shtick”. A Brit, James Townsend, is overseeing the business here.

Penn’s entire career has been in the industry. He started a market research business in his Harvard dorm room, Penn, Schoen & Berland Associates, and was an early user of computers for polling. The business was bought by WPP in 2001.

His career as pollster, lobbyist and adviser to the Clintons, among others, is part of American political legend. He worked for them from the 1996 presidential campaign won by Bill, when he tried to win over the “soccer moms”, through to Hillary’s 2008 failed presidential bid.

He moved on from Washington — “politics itself had become so grimy” — and in 2012 joined Microsoft: “Sheryl Sandberg said to me, I don’t know why you’re going to Microsoft. In five years, you’re going to be out of business.”

He loved working in tech, which continues to give him a kick — he even turned up as an avatar to a board meeting last month.

Then he branched out on his own. He and Steve Ballmer, the former chief executive of Microsoft, put $250 million into Stagwell in 2015 with the aim of creating a marketing business “that would compete against the majors”. The company celebrates its ninth birthday on September 15 and there are more than 70 companies in the group, which has a market value of $1.6 billion.

Stagwell’s top ten clients are “tech and alcohol”, he chuckles. “Traditional packaged goods companies? Not so much.” The aim is to offer them everything from creativity and communications to data analytics and consumer experiences, which includes making websites — “anything that touches the last mile to the consumer”. Generative AI is a big focus as companies change the way they interact with their customers: “Virtually every website has to be rebuilt now.”

Tech clients have proved a drag on many advertising companies this year as they reined in their enormous marketing outlay. Stagwell is no exception: “2023 was the year that I like to forget. But having been in a tech company where I had a $2 billion budget, I know these budgets grow back. All they did was prune the trees.”

The cuts show in the numbers. The company’s results for 2023 record revenue of $2.5 billion, a fall of 6 per cent from the year before, with adjusted profits of $360 million, down 20 per cent. Next year it forecasts this will be between $400 to $450 million.

Stagwell has 1 per cent of the market. The new London HQ is part of the company’s aggressive ambition to steal more share. S4 or not, Penn’s tanks are firmly on his European rivals’ lawns.

[halfpenny] 13/5/2024 13:59

How likely is a Takeover Target as the Company has stabilised and shares still at a Target Level.

Target price anyone??

[john09] 13/5/2024 13:16

That link doesnt open Nige

[nige co] 13/5/2024 12:56

Clinton aide’s marketing empire has its tanks on Europe’s lawn

"The first approach was rebuffed and Penn is understood to have made a series of sequentially lower offers for his British rival, with the last worth around $700 million, as the UK-listed S4’s share price fell. S4’s stock is down around 55 per cent since this time last year and the business has a market value of around £365 million.

Sorrell has described the offers as not “credible” but those familiar with the matter say Penn, 70, is serious."

Full article The Times ......

[nige co] 13/5/2024 12:48

Clinton aide’s marketing empire has its tanks on Europe’s lawn

"The first approach was rebuffed and Penn is understood to have made a series of sequentially lower offers for his British rival, with the last worth around $700 million, as the UK-listed S4’s share price fell. S4’s stock is down around 55 per cent since this time last year and the business has a market value of around £365 million.

Sorrell has described the offers as not “credible” but those familiar with the matter say Penn, 70, is serious."

Full article The Times ......

[tongosti] 13/5/2024 11:45

Yep, you're right Nige.

[nige co] 13/5/2024 11:41

Don't forget NY Boy, he's another idiot, another ex shareholder who bought high and sold low.