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Break Up Not Buyout, Say VNU Shareholders
A group of VNU shareholders is pressing the Dutch company to break itself into three divisions and sell each separately rather than agree to the proposed 7.3bn Euro buyout deal with private-equity firms, according to reports today in the Wall Street Journal.
VNU announced last week that it was in active talks with a group of seven private equity firms, who made an offer to buy the firm in January, valuing it at 28.5 Euros per share. Its supervisory and executive boards are expected to make a decision by the end of this month (www.mrweb.com/drno/news5143.htm ).
However, the Wall Street Journal reports that some shareholders - who were not named - said they would reject a private equity bid at this level. Instead, they said the company could be valued at 35 to 40 Euros per share after selling some divisions and streamlining others.
Their proposals involve splitting the company into three, along the lines of its existing divisions - Media and Measurement (which includes Nielsen Media Research and Nielsen//NetRatings), Marketing Information (which includes ACNielsen) and Business Information.
VNU is online at www.vnu.com
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