GIC buys 5% stake in TV ratings firm Nielsen in S$1.1b deal

SINGAPORE — GIC has snapped up a 5 per cent stake in Nielsen, a leading provider of TV audience ratings data, the Singapore sovereign wealth fund said in a United States regulatory filing late on Wednesday, in a deal estimated at more than US$800 million (S$1.1 billion).

GIC said in the filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission that it had bought 18.7 million shares in New York-listed Nielsen, giving it slightly more than 5 per cent of the firm, which has a market capitalisation of US$16.7 billion.

When contacted by TODAY yesterday, a GIC spokesperson confirmed the investment, but declined to disclose further details, including the price paid for the shares.

Headquartered in New York and in Diemen, the Netherlands, Nielsen has a presence in more than 100 countries, where it studies consumer behaviour to identify trends and habits worldwide. It achieved strong growth last year in Greater China, South-east Asia and Latin America, as its investments in coverage and capability paid off in terms of revenue growth rates.

Nielsen said in December that its business in emerging markets was accelerating despite the general slowdown in these economies. It predicted the business would grow by 9 per cent this year after 7 per cent in the previous year, London’s Financial Times (FT) reported yesterday.

“We are still under-penetrated in these markets and so have continued to invest and it is paying off,” Nielsen chief executive Mitch Barns was quoted by the FT as saying.

E-commerce is an area Nielsen is focusing more of its energies on. In its earnings conference last year, Mr Barns said e-commerce presented it with powerful long-term opportunities, although the revenue from the segment was still relatively small.

“It’s digital, personal, real-time and, when combined with the big trends of mobile-device ubiquity and hyperconnectivity, you begin to see the convergence of the offline and online worlds. Simply put, today’s e-commerce environment is a great context for understanding how Nielsen’s strategy and portfolio will play in the broader market of the future,” said Mr Barns.

Through its Omni Channel service, Nielsen deepened its partnership with Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba, which last year raised US$25 billion in the world’s largest-ever initial public offering. “As we continue to build our capabilities, we are seeing growing demand across categories as our clients look to Nielsen for insights on how and where to achieve success on the world’s largest e-commerce platform,” Mr Barns added.

GIC, ranked by the Sovereign Wealth Fund Institute as the world’s eighth-largest fund with about US$320 billion of assets, has been stepping up investments across the globe in a wide range of sectors, especially in real estate.

In December, it partnered Singapore-listed Global Logistics Properties to acquire IndCor, the industrial real-estate arm of American investment giant Blackstone Group, for US$8.1 billion. In the same month, it agreed to buy a prime office building in Rio de Janeiro for an undisclosed sum in its first wholly-owned investment in Latin America. AGENCIEs