Staff at Sir Martin Sorrell's old firm WPP are queuing up to work for him again after he was forced out of the company in a dramatic row last year, the advertising mogul has said. Advertising executives at all levels are trying to jump ship from WPP to Sir Martin's new venture S4 Capital, he said, with new candidates approaching him every day. The 74-year-old – who built WPP from nothing into a FTSE 100 stalwart but was pushed out last year amid allegations, which he denies, that he paid a prostitute using company expenses – raised doubts over whether his former employer can survive in one piece. Shares have fallen almost a quarter since Sir Martin left. He said: "People feel under pressure. The best thing that could happen is that it gets broken up." The WPP founder said S4 Capital, created last May, has ripened from being a "peanut" to a Coco De Mer – "the biggest nut in the world" – to a "pumpkin" as profits and revenues both shot up around 50pc for the three months to September 30, to £42.1m and £56.6m respectively. In a nod to Cinderella, he said: "We couldn't find a bigger nut, so we were bereft of analogies. A golden carriage is what we hope it's going to turn into."
Sir Martin Sorrell claims people at BT want to cross ship to S4 Capital . Senior executives at all levels have approached him with new candidates getting in touch on an almost daily basis Sorrel said . WPP has been struggling to transform its image in the face of reduced corporate spending on traditional advertising and the incursion of giants into its market . Sorrell said " People feel under pressure . The best thing that could happen is that it gets broken up . "