Nielsen Prices IPO At $23 Per Share To Raise $1.8 Billion

Global information and measurement company The Nielsen Company this morning announced that it has priced its IPO of 71,428,572 shares of its common stock at $23 per share (precisely as The New York Times called it yesterday).

The company will receive net proceeds of approximately $1,560 million from the initial public offering of its common stock, and approximately $240 million from a bond offering after payment of commissions and estimated expenses. Total: $1.8 billion.

Nielsen says it intends to use the net proceeds to repay a portion of its outstanding debt and to pay a agreement termination fee to its current owners (Blackstone Group, Carlyle Group, KKR & Co. and Thomas H. Lee Partners).

The Nielsen Company’s shares of common stock are expected to begin trading today, January 26, on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker symbol “NLSN.”

The IPO’s underwriters have a 30-day option to purchase up to 10,714,286 of additional shares of common stock from The Nielsen Company at the IPO price less the underwriting discount.

In the bond offering, The Nielsen Company will sell an aggregate principal amount of $250 million of bonds, and the underwriters have a 30-day option to purchase up to an additional $37.5 million in aggregate principal amount of bonds from The Nielsen Company.

J.P. Morgan, Morgan Stanley, Credit Suisse, Deutsche Bank Securities, Goldman, Sachs & Co. and Citi are serving as joint book-running managers for both offerings.