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New York
Elliott eyes Nielsen: A group of private-equity firms, including activist investor Elliott Management, is looking to buy TV-ratings company Nielsen, say Dana Cimilluca and Cara Lombardo in The Wall Street Journal. The $15bn deal includes Nielsen’s hefty $5bn debt. If completed, the deal “would be substantial”. Nielsen has a market value of $6.2bn and an enterprise value (which includes cash and debt) of about $11bn. Its shares rose over 30% after the WSJ reported on the talks. Nielsen has been “synonymous with measuring US TV ratings”, which supply networks with audience estimates that they use to sell advertising time. But its hold over the sector has loosened as streaming giants continue to grow and traditional broadcasters lose viewers. Nielsen has introduced metrics for streaming over the last few years, but it nevertheless faces stiff competition from rivals.
Despite the rise in the share
