Source: www.insideradio.com, March 2022
Elliott Management Corp., which since 2018 has owned a stake in Nielsen Holdings PLC, is part of a consortium of private-equity firms which, according to sources reporting to The Wall Street Journal, is in advanced talks to purchase the measurement giant, with a price tag in the range of $15 billion including over $5 billion of debt. While there is no guarantee of a deal and no information about potential price per share, these sources say financing talks with a number of banks are progressing and a takeover deal could be completed within weeks.
In 2019, following Elliott’s request that it explore a sale, Nielsen announced a spinoff of part of its business to create two separate public companies: the core media business, and Global Connect, a market-analytics operation that measures retail and consumer behavior, the latter of which it sold in 2021 for nearly $3 billion to private-equity firm Advent International Corp.
The performance of Nielsen’s own shares is down from a high of more than $55 in 2016 to $17.51 when the market closed last Friday, according to the Journal, which speculates that as broadcast and cable TV have been losing viewers and the company’s own streaming metrics compete with many players in that space, this has put Nielsen on a downward trend since COVID. As of Monday, Nielsen’s market value stood at $6.2 billion, with its enterprise value of more than $11 billion, given its $5 billion debt load.
The sale, if completed, would be the latest such move for Elliott, following the $16.5 billion purchase of cloud-computing company Citrix Systems Inc. by its private-equity arm, Evergreen Coast Capital Corp. in January.
“As a matter of company policy, Nielsen does not comment on market rumors or speculation,” a statement from Nielsen regarding the pending sale said.
