S4 Capital PLC (LON:SFOR) shares jumped on Thursday as the digital advertising and marketing firm reported a surge in revenues for the first quarter of the year.
In an update for the three months ended 31 March, the group reported that revenues had risen 73% to £71mln, up 17% on a like-for-like (LFL) basis, while gross profit climbed 85% to £61mln, a 19% LFL increase.
WATCH: S4 Capital’s Sir Martin Sorrell says there may be “very significant opportunities for a purely digital business such as ours”
S4 also said it was confident that it will deliver “double digit like-for-like revenue and gross profit growth” and a “reasonably strong operating EBITDA margin in 2020”.
The company also said there was a “fighting chance” that it will achieve its three-year plan of doubling organically.
Looking ahead, S4’s executive chairman Sir Martin Sorrell said the firm’s financial position and liquidity were “robust” despite the coronavirus pandemic and that new business activity was “still frenetic” and he expected the pandemic to “only accelerate the digital trends we have seen before”.
The company added that it was continuing to examine “smaller merger opportunities especially in high growth functional areas, such as data and analytics and ecommerce and geographic expansion in the one market we need to add, Germany, where we have significant new business opportunities”.
The solid first quarter performance drove the shares up 5.7% to 194p in early trading.