Possible Sale of VNU Research Units

International media and information company VNU is exploring strategic options, including the possible sale, of two of its marketing information units in Europe - ACNielsen's Customized Research services and Claritas Europe, with combined revenues of approximately EUR 130 million.

In so doing, VNU aims to re-focus resources and management attention on those activities closest to VNU's mainstream marketing information businesses to deliver sustained value growth.

Brian Chadbourne, President and CEO of VNU Marketing Information EMEA commented: 'ACNielsen's European Customized Research business and Claritas Europe are both well-established businesses with strong management and long-term client relationships, but they operate with little synergy with the rest of our marketing information business in the European marketplace.'

ACNielsen's European Customized Research business, employing approximately 225 employees (FTE's), conducts a broad range of qualitative and quantitative research activities across a wide spectrum of industry sectors. The evaluation of strategic options for ACNielsen's Customized Research business is limited solely to Europe, where it operates currently in ten countries, with little client overlap with ACNielsen's other businesses.

VNU's customized research activities outside Europe remain an important part of its core marketing information business and are unaffected by this process. In this regard, VNU maintains extensive market leading customized operations in Asia Pacific, Central and Eastern Europe, Africa and the Middle East. Customized operations in these regions are fully integrated into overall marketing information activities and ACNielsen's core product offering to clients. The activities of ACNielsen BASES, the world's leading provider of pre-market consumer insights for marketers of consumer package goods, are also unaffected by the evaluation in Europe.

VNU has retained the specialized firm, Veronis, Suhler & Stevenson, Inc. as its advisor to look into the strategic options for ACNielsen's European Customized Research businesses.

Claritas Europe, employing approximately 700 people (FTE's), owns and operates the largest consumer lifestyle databases in Europe, serving the direct marketing industry. It has offices in eight countries and is run independently from Claritas, Inc. in the U.S. Claritas Europe has a broad customer base, however it lacks synergy with the other activities of VNU Marketing Information Europe. In the U.S., VNU's Claritas, Inc. operations have a fundamentally different business model from their European namesake and VNU remains committed to its presence in that market.

All articles 2006-23 written and edited by Mel Crowther and/or Nick Thomas unless otherwise stated.