Merger activity increased significantly last week with six new deals announced and eight deals completed. There were 17 deals announced in the month of March, with a total value of $64.55 billion.
Nielsen Holdings (NLSN)
Nielsen Holdings was founded in Netherlands in 1923 by Arthur C. Nielsen Sr., who has been credited for coining the business term “market share”. Originally called the AC Nielsen Company, it was the first company to offer market research. The company was initially incorporated with the idea of selling engineering performance surveys, and in 1932, it expanded its business by creating a retail index that tracked the flow of food and drug purchases. Nielsen’s retail index, the first of its kind, allowed companies to determine their ‘share’ of the market.
Back in the hustle-bustle days of the dot com bubble, I worked at a company in San Francisco that managed to carve a nice little niche for itself in the then emerging category of natural and organic food that Nielsen had decided not to track. Those were the days when Whole Foods, Wild Oats and Odwalla were independent companies.
Today, Nielsen Holdings operates as a measurement and data analytics company in over 100 countries, providing clients with data about what consumers watch (through programming, advertising) and what they buy (based on categories, brands, products) on a local and global basis and how those choices intersect.