What you need to know:

• Sir Martin Sorrell says he expects a resolution to the S4 Capital 2021 results delay “in fairly short order”, reiterating that results will be “in line with market expectations”.
• It has been almost three weeks since PwC indicated they couldn’t sign off on S4 Capital’s 2021 results, sending its share price into a steep fall.

Sir Martin Sorrell says he expects a resolution to the auditing delays at S4 Capital, which have postponed its 2021 results and sent its share price plummeting, “in fairly short order”.

In his first comments about the delay for almost three weeks, Sorrell, the executive chairman of S4 Capital, told an interview with Yahoo Finance the results would be in line with expectations and there wasn’t much more he could add.

“The information we've signalled or sent out, the information in two bulletins recently, I can't say much more than that, other than [let] PriceWaterhouse[Coopers] continue to do their work. And I anticipate a resolution in fairly short order,” he said.

The interviewer, Julie Hyman, asked: “And so is that sort of your message to investors to try to reassure them?”

Sorrell replied: “Well, as we said before in our previous release, we said that PriceWaterhouse[Coopers] continue to complete their work. And we confirmed that the results would be in line with market expectations, the range of market expectations.

So I think that's very explicit. If there was anything material to report of significance, we would be obligated, both PWC and ourselves, obligated to report it. So I would just say, just stand by for further news.”

The company’s share price nosedived from 474p to 289p – 40 per cent – in two days in early April, after it told the London Stock Exchange its auditor, PwC, had not been able to sign off on its results.

It closed at 296p yesterday, falling five per cent from 314p.