Sir Martin Sorrell rues his toughest year yet at S4 Capital

Sir Martin Sorrell yesterday said that 2023 was the toughest year since he founded his advertising agency S4 Capital.

The tycoon said that higher interest rates and inflation hit marketing spending. But Sorrell, 78, who set up the company in 2018 after leaving rival WPP, predicted this year would be ‘slightly better’ as interest rates are expected to fall.

‘Last year was tougher,’ he told BBC Radio Four’s Today programme after S4 released a trading update that said revenues for 2023 fell 4 per cent.

The company also said profit margins ‘improved’ in the second half of the year following ‘significant’ cost-cutting.

The assessment followed a gloomy year for the advertising industry as firms cut marketing budgets in the face of rising interest rates and global instability.

‘The three big issues that absorb our clients, or worry our clients, are firstly around US-China relationships, or lack of them, secondly Russia and Ukraine, and third, and not least, Iran and what’s happening in Gaza with Israel and Hamas,’ Sorrell told the BBC.