| Type | Wholly owned subsidiary |
|---|---|
| Industry | Marketing |
| Founded | 1997 |
| Headquarters | London, England, UK |
| Key people | Pedro Ros (Chairman of the board), Eric Salama (CEO) |
| Services | Market research |
| Revenue | £1,068 million (2007)[1] |
| Operating income | £102.7 million (2007)[1] |
| Profit | £58.5 million (2007)[1] |
| Owner(s) | Kantar Group (a division of the WPP Group) |
| Employees | 15,270 (2007)[1] |
| Website | www.tnsglobal.com |
Taylor Nelson Sofres is a leading market research and market information group. Formerly listed on the London Stock Exchange and a constituent of the FTSE 250 Index, the firm was acquired by WPP Group in October 2008 for 1.6 billion pounds.
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The history of TNS as a market research company began in 1946 with the establishment of National Family Opinion (NFO) in the United States.[2] Since then, various mergers and acquisitions involving large companies from the US, Europe and Asia Pacific eventually became the Taylor Nelson Sofres group.
The 1960s saw the establishment of the six main companies that today form part of TNS. Starting with NFO in the 1940s, Intersearch in the US in 1960; then AGB in the UK in 1962; Sofres in France in 1963; Frank Small Associates (FSA) in Australia in 1964; Taylor Nelson in the UK in 1965.[2] Over the 60s, 70s, 80s and 90s, these companies grew significantly as individual businesses.
The 1990s and early years of the new millennium saw consolidation in the industry. In 1992, Sofres acquired Secodip. In 1992, Taylor Nelson joined with AGB. In 1997, Sofres combined with FSA. In 1997, Sofres acquired Intersearch and then merged with Taylor Nelson AGB. In 2000, Taylor Nelson Sofres acquired CMR, followed by the NFO WorldGroup in 2003.[2]
The TNS Group continues to grow, mainly by acquiring small research companies to strengthen its position in markets in which it already has a presence. For example, in December 2007, TNS acquired Landis Strategy & Innovation in the United States, a specialist research-based consultancy.[3]
In the same month, TNS announced that it had reached agreement to increase its ownership of LatinPanel Holdings from 33.3% to 100%. TNS was formerly a joint venture partner with the NPD Group and the IBOPE Group in this continuous consumer panel business serving Latin America operating in 15 countries in Latin America, and covering 96% of the region’s GDP, providing local and international clients with access to a household research panel across the packaged groceries, toiletries and cosmetics, fresh foods and textile retail markets.[4]
In early March 2008 TNS announced the merging of its North American operating units TNS Media Intelligence, TNS Media Research with the recently acquired firms Compete and Cymfony to create TNS Media Group.[5][6]
On 29 April 2008 TNS announced that it was in talks to merge with German market research company GfK.[7] The announcement was followed in May by two conditional offers from WPP to buy TNS for a combination of cash and shares, both of which were rejected by TNS’s board. The hostile WPP bid led to GfK and TNS abandoning their merger plans. GfK sought without success to find backing for a rival offer, leaving WPP’s hostile bid as the only one on the table. On 9 October 2008 WPP declared that its latest bid had been successful and that it was buying TNS for $1.93bn.[8] TNS now sits in WPP’s Kantar Group. Many Kantar subsidiary companies are currently undergoing restructuring and rebranding as a result of the TNS deal. TNS itself will see various units either merged with other Kantar units or spun out into separate Kantar entities.
TNS has chosen to specialise in eight market sectors:[9]
TNS separates its worldwide operations in over eighty countries into four main divisions: North America, Europe, Asia Pacific and emerging markets.
| Rank | Company | Sales in 2006 (million USD) |
Growth in % |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Nielsen Company | 3,696.0 | 2.6 |
| 2 | IMS Health Inc. | 1,958.6 | 8.9 |
| 3 | Taylor Nelson Sofres | 1,851.1 | 2.5 |
| 4 | Kantar Group | 1,401.4 | 4.1 |
| 5 | GfK AG | 1,397.3 | 5.4 |
| 6 | Ipsos | 1,077.0 | 6.5 |
| 7 | Synovate | 739.6 | 9.5 |
| 8 | IRI | 665.0 | 6.6 |
| 9 | Westat | 425.8 | 0.8 |
| 10 | Arbitron | 329.3 | 5.9 |