Nielsen likely has planned to use 2008 as a year to demonstrate what the company is worth. If not 2008, then 2009.

At some point, the Equity fund providers will work on selling Nielsen to
the highest bidder. There is typically a 2 to 4 year window after Nielsen purchased VNU, that a buyer must be found so the original combination of funds provided by equity, Mr. Calhoun, and a number of banks, can be paid back, with loads of profit.

Problem is, in the credit crunch and overall financial crisis we have now, who has the money to buy Nielsen? It probably wasn't lightly leveraged when it was still VNU. Now, it is sure to be highly leveraged, a problem that has gotten more than a few investment companies into trouble lately. The cost that was paid to VNU for its assets is leverage. And, it will be further leveraged when/if a buyer steps in to purchase it.

Will be interesting to see the next steps for Nielsen's impending sell off in the midst of a once in a lifetime global financial crisis.

I do not understand why everybody is lifting their finger to TCS, TCS is a great organisation and one of the largest IT/BPO service providers in the world. Nielsen runs a business and they will mind only profit, thats quite natural and whoever is more efficient (or fittest) will get the opprtunity to serve Nielsen. Every company wants to minimise cost and maximise proft, Nielsen is not an exception.

Now, the question is whether Nielsen should cut jobs to make more profit. Actually, Nielsen is not only cutting jobs, its giving jobs also but in India and I think that is a symbol of a truly global company. After all, we all know the theory of Survival of the Fittest by Charles Robert Darwin, whoever is more fit will survive is this competitive world. I think we should not be afraid of the competition, we should face it confidently.

Thanks & regards

They just hired a whole bunch of "executives". According to their CVs they all worked at GE and then Citi. The employees are going to get screwed over while the executives are going to rape the company and turn around and flip it. They're going to lose all their big accounts because those companies are not going to get accurate data from TCS. The people from India are good at working from scripts and doing exactly what they are told but are clueless when it comes to anything outside of the script.

Right now their all scrambling because Lou Dobbs called them out on CNN. Check out the videos at CNN.com - CNN Videos - searchword: nielsen

http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/bestoftv/2008/06/23/ldt.tucker.outsourcing.jobs.cnn?iref=videosearch

http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/bestoftv/2008/06/25/ldt.tucker.nielsen.outsourcing.cnn?iref=videosearch

There are two flaws in the way things have been outsourced to TCS.
Firstly the cost of IT professionals through TCS comes in very close to what they pay onshore employees so the cost saving in not optimised as one would expect from the massive retrenchments.
Secondly, the Intellectual Property of Nielsen is moving to TCS which inextricably links Nielsen to TCS. My guess is that is a very strategic move on Mitchel Habibs part but not in the long term interests of Nielsen.

"Who has the money to buy Nielsen"? Well, Tata Consulting does - but why would they? They'll have the IP.

I hope they rot in hell. fucking bastards are destroying nielsen. it used to be a nice place to work. now everyone is at each other's throats. no one is happy anymore. we have to train our replacements but they keep telling us our jobs are safe. they must think we're really stupid. I have two interviews this week. I hope one of them comes through because I can't stand the thought of walking through those doors. the consultants aren't even smart enough to know how anything works and are too dumb to understand even if you explain it to them.