Ipsos in deal to acquire Latin America's Livra Panels business

FRANCE-- Ipsos is to acquire online fieldwork firm Livra, which runs a panel of one million Spanish and Portuguese-speaking consumers across Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Mexico, Portugal, Spain and Venezuela.

The company was founded in 1999 by Martín Añazco and Diego Meller, and earlier this year signed a deal to become TNS's panel partner in the Latin American region.

It is not known at this stage what effect the Ipsos acquisition may have on the TNS agreement.

According to an Ipsos statement, Livra will “continue to operate independently” under the management of Añazco and Meller.

“This is an exciting new opportunity for Livra,” said Añazco. “Ipsos understood our strategy and realised how our platform could ultimately be applied on a bigger scale. This partnership will help us push these innovations even further and provide huge benefits to our clients.”

Meller added: “We believe that in combining our strong experience in online research and Ipsos's leadership in Latin America we will be able to give a better, more comprehensive service to our clients, as well as consolidate our leadership and make our panels grow faster than ever in terms of size, quality and profiling.”

Livra staff were being informed of the deal today. The company has offices in Buenos Aires, London, Mexico City and Sao Paulo.

Author: Brian Tarran