NEWS11 February 2011
CYPRUS— Nielsen has acquired the bulk of retail sales tracking firm MEMRB for a reported fee of €60m – but both companies are refusing to discuss details of the transaction.
MEMRB said it had no comment to make when contacted by Research today, and Nielsen issued a short statement confirming it had “acquired MEMRB businesses in 28 out of the 32 countries in which they operate”, but not specifying which ones.
Cyprus-headquartered MEMRB was formed in the 1970s by chairman George Vassiliou (pictured). Initially it ran services across the Middle East but later expanded its reach to cover Central and Eastern Europe. It also operates in Pakistan and North Africa.
In 1998, SymphonyIRI (then known as Information Resources) bought a 19.9% stake in MEMRB with a view to jointly developing the latter’s retail tracking business.
A spokesman for SymphonyIRI confirmed today that it had sold off its interest in MEMRB while reaching an agreement with the new owners to ensure access to MEMRB retail sales data on the same terms as Nielsen clients.
The agreement also allows SymphonyIRI to continue to field their local clients services teams as they have in the past, while a recipricol data access agreement provides each company with access to the other’s retail market data in certain countries to deliver solutions and services to multi-country clients.