AD King's second act

SIR Martin Sorrell, godfather of the advertising industry, has quite possibly bested the 60-is-the-new-40 happy ageing mantra.

More than three decades after he sank money into a tiny British "shell" that made wire baskets and loaded it up to create the world's largest ad powerhouse WPP Plc - which he abruptly exited from last year amid undesirable circumstances and waning financials - the 74-year-old is onto Act II.

His first itch to build something from ground up was triggered by "an attack of male menopause", as he puts it, that led him to quit industry giant Saatchi & Saatchi in the mid-80s to strike out on his own at 40. "Forty is an interesting age because you can look back at the first 20 and the next 20. I thought, why not get a crack on my own," he tells The Business Times.