Advertising tycoon Sir Martin Sorrell has made his first acquisition on behalf of his new company, S4 Capital, after leaving the advertising firm he started 30 years ago back in April.
Sorrell bought Dutch company MediaMonks for around €300 million, seeing off competition from his old firm WPP in the process. WPP said he was being “unlawful” and in breach of his confidentiality agreement by starting a new company, and looking at buying the digital ad production firm when he was still chief executive.
Sorrell denies the allegations. He left WPP, the advertising firm he managed for 30 years, in April in the wake of misconduct allegations, which he also denies.
“This represents a significant step in building a new age, new era, digital agency platform for clients,” said Sorrell.
“MediaMonks’ roots are totally in new media, and data, content and technology. Our next moves will be to build this platform further and to add meaningful data analytics and digital media buying. The company will be a unitary one with MediaMonks as its core.”
MediaMonks brings in revenues of around €110 million and employs 750 people – or “monks” – in 11 offices around the world. Sorrell will now go by the title of “senior monk”.