Arch Brexit critic gets a £460m lift from fall of pound

MEDIA tycoon Sir Martin Sorrell saw his advertising firm WPP pocket £462m from a post-Brexit fall in the value of the pound – despite peddling doom-laden warnings ahead of the vote.

The billionaire, who was paid £70m last year, reported a 23.4pc boost in sales to £3.6bn in the three months after the vote, driven by sterling’s collapse.

But instead of admitting his gloomy predictions were exaggerated, Sir Martin – a staunch supporter of the Remain campaign – said the sales jump could be ‘false gains’.

‘I always think of the value of sterling as the country’s stock price, and if the value of the currency falls it’s rather like the country’s stock price is falling,’ he said. ‘We have to watch carefully what impact Brexit is going to have in the fourth quarter.’

And despite making £462m of sales in the UK between July and September, WPP said business in the UK had ‘softened’, signalling the ‘first signs of Brexit anxiety’.

Sir Martin, who has built WPP into the biggest marketing agency in the world, warned before the referendum that leaving would hit investment and jobs ‘and put the economy at risk’. The 71-year- old, dubbed the Sage of Soho for his pronouncements on the state of the UK and the world, was among a group of FTSE bosses who called on voters to remain in the EU.

But after the vote he admitted business had‘ perked up’ following a pre-referendum slowdown.

And the glowing set of figures released by WPP yesterday – with sales up 5.9pc in the UK – are the latest sign the scare stories peddled before the referendum may have been misplaced.

Since the referendum, sterling has lost almost a fifth of its value against the US dollar, falling from $1.50 the night before the vote to just $1.22 today.

While it is bad news for importers, it provides a cash boost for a global business such as WPP – which makes 86pc of its sales outside the UK – when earnings are converted back into pounds.

WPP’s share price yesterday rose 4.1pc, or 70p to 1778p.