TNS And GfK Agree Merger
TNS has agreed a ‘merger of equals’ with German market research firm GfK, after it rejected bids from Sir Martin Sorrell’s WPP.
The new company, to be called GfK-TNS, will have operations in 111 countries and will be the second largest market research firm in the world after the Nielsen Company.
Following the merger, the GfK-TNS board will be chaired by Hajo Riesenbeck. Donald Brydon will become the senior independent director while David Lowden will be chief executive.
Dr Klaus Wübbenhorst, currently chief executive of GfK, will join the GfK-TNS board as a non-executive director and the representative of GfK-Nürnberg e.V., GfK-TNS’ largest shareholder following completion of the merger.
The annual pre-tax benefits through cost reduction are expected to be at least £76 million by the end of the third full year following completion of the deal.
In April, TNS and GfK revealed that they were in merger talks, before WPP made two bids for TNS, with the second valuing the company at just under £1 billion (see TNS Rejects Second WPP Bid).
TNS Global: www.tnsglobal.com
Gfk: www.gfk.com