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Martin Sorrell, founder and executive chairman of S4 Capital, has said that WPP may be “too far gone” for incoming chief executive Cindy Rose to turn around the business.

The founder and former CEO of WPP, who has advocated for the sale of the holding company’s media arm, WPP Media, then known as Group M, again raised the question of whether WPP may be “better off” breaking down its units to sell them off, criticizing outgoing CEO Mark Read’s leadership over the past seven years.

Speaking to Campaign, he said, “Cindy Rose’s operating experience at Disney, Vodafone and Microsoft may be stellar and she may be very talented, but the question is whether the business is too far gone as a result of the approach of the last seven years and would be better off being dismembered into its still-standing constituent parts or consolidated elsewhere.” 

(Campaign is PRWeek’s sister business media outlet at Haymarket Media). 

The market cap of rival Publicis is now four times the size of WPP, and WPP issued a profit warning for Q2, revising its full-year revenue forecast to a decline of between 3% and 5%.

Sorrell quipped, “I’m sure John Wren, with 20:20 hindsight, would have preferred to acquire WPP rather than IPG. In any event, the jury is out.”

Primarily, Sorrell added, WPP “needs leadership, a new strategy and a clear structure” to rival the “clear strategy around digital, data and media and a country-led structure,” which, according to him, Publicis has. 

Rose, he continued, fits the criteria sought by WPP chairman Philip Jansen but, he noted, she will have to “be located in, and 24/7 laser-focused on, the U.S., undoubtedly the center of the client world and where WPP people are probably most demoralized.”

The U.S. was among the first of WPP’s markets to face job cuts as part of the restructure of Group M, and employees were disgruntled this year by Read’s return-to-office mandate.

Sorrell expressed scepticism over agencies’ ability to build software-as-a-service type businesses, as WPP is attempting to do with Open, in competition with companies like Adobe, which are already dedicated to such a set-up.

He also pointed to client and talent losses as the result of the “collapse” of brands, including Wunderman, J Walter Thompson and Young & Rubicam, as cause for concern.

“WPP has spent over £1.5 billion over the last five years below the headline operating profit line on mostly cash restructuring charges and built up multiple levels of overhead at group, sub-group and company levels,” he said. “Under the guise of simplification, the leadership has collapsed storied brands such as J Walter Thompson, Young & Rubicam, Wunderman, Grey, Hill & Knowlton, losing not only many talented leaders, but clients as a result, too.”

WPP folded H&K into Burson when it merged H&K and BCW last year. The holding company also owns and operates Ogilvy PR. 

Analysts at Barclays and Morgan Stanley reacted positively to Rose’s appointment after WPP announced the news on July 10, though they flagged her lack of experience in capital markets and within ad agencies.

WPP has been approached for comment.

This article first appeared on Campaign UK.