Kantar set to be broken up by Bain and WPP
By Ralph Tathagata
Kantar is set to be broken up and sold by owners Bain Capital and WPP, shifting from a plan to pursue a stock exchange flotation of the company over worries about the weak market for public offerings.
It would be recalled that in 2019, Bain Capital, a US private equity group, acquired 60% of Kantar, giving the company a valuation of about $4bn, while the advertising group WPP retained a minority shareholding.
Also in January this year, Kantar sold off its media division, which runs the UK’s TV audience measurement system, to private equity group HIG Capital. Kantar’s owners were given a $1bn valuation for the business, which accounted for about 15 per cent of its revenues.
Bain and WPP are now seeking to cash in on their investment while facing a difficult time for initial public offerings.
While Bain and WPP had previously been weighing up an IPO for the remaining business, they are now seeking to sell its large divisions, according to a report.
Kantar’s faster growing unit Numerator, a Chicago-based consumer and market intelligence company, could be sold as soon as this year, the report said.
Recently, Kantar merged Numerator, which serves the North American market research sector, with its Worldpanel division to form a new global consumer data company.
In an earlier report, Kantar said it had $2.5bn of adjusted gross revenues through the first nine months of 2024, a 3 per cent increase compared with the same period a year earlier. It posted $509mn of adjusted earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation in the period.
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