LONDON (ShareCast) - (Sharecast News) - Advertising and communications agency S4 Capital announced a merger of its Media Monks division with 4 Mile Analytics on Wednesday, adding that its trading was continuing in line with expectations.
The London-listed firm, led by industry veteran Sir Martin Sorrell, said the combination of 4 Mile Analytics with Media Monks would "significantly expand" the capabilities of its data and digital media practice.

It said the merger would augment its global analytics capabilities, and expand its client base.

S4 described 4 Mile Analytics as a "leader" in data analytics, engineering and governance, software engineering, user experience (UX) design, and project and product management.

4 Mile Analytics was founded in 2017 by Nick Fogler in Santa Cruz, California, as a focussed data consultancy, with the goal of helping clients extract more value from their data.

The company works with Fortune 500 brands to enable custom data experiences leveraging technology from partners including Looker, Snowflake, Fivetran and Google Cloud.

With around 50 data specialists, 4 Mile Analytics generated revenues of about $6.5m in 2021, and was targeting to double that this year.

"Understanding and acting on data is at the heart of the S4 Capital content, digital media and technology services offering," said S4's executive chairman Martin Sorrell.

"Therefore, we are delighted to welcome Nick, Sam and their colleagues at 4 Mile Analytics, as we expand our capabilities and partnerships, in particular with Google and their Looker and Google Cloud platforms."

Nick Fogler, 4 Mile Analytics founder and chief executive officer, added that his company was "excited" to join forces with Media Monks and S4 Capital.

"We see huge opportunities to bring the offerings of the wider group to our clients and provide even more opportunities for our team."

Looking at its current trading, S4 Capital said that both the first 11 months and its forecasts for December were in line with market expectations, delivering "very strong" like-for-like revenue and gross profit growth "well ahead" of the previous company guidance of 40%.

Operational EBITDA margins improved "significantly" in the second half, as S4 flagged in its half-year report in September and the third quarter statement in November.

Even after allowing for the cash consideration paid for mergers recently completed, including 4 Mile Analytics, the company said it had monthly net debt ranging between £10m and £30m, reflecting "strong" operational cash flow.

"We are excited about the growth opportunity ahead of us in 2022 and beyond, all incorporated into our fourth three year plan for 2022 to 2024," Martin Sorrell said.

"Our budgets are set at 25% like-for-like gross profit/net revenue growth in line with that three year plan, which seeks to double the size of the company organically and targets an improvement in the operational EBITDA margin back towards previous levels."

S4 Capital said it would announce full-year results for 2021 on 18 March.

At 1030 GMT, shares in S4 Capital were up 5.91% at 561.34p.

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