Nielsen Ratings rejects $9 billion takeover offer

Yahoo Finance Live's Julie Hyman and Brian Sozzi discuss Nielsen Ratings rejecting a $9 billion private equity takeover offer.

Video Transcript

JULIE HYMAN: But one more mover that we got to talk about, Brian Sozzi, we've been talking about all of the deals being announced this morning. There is one deal, though, that is not going to be happening, and that's an acquisition of the company, Nielsen. It had gotten an offer from a consortium of private equity companies for $25.40 a share, which is about where the stock is trading now because the stock is down 15%.

But Nielsen saying the offer undervalued the company. So this is one where they're kind of holding out. As you pointed out earlier, tech valuations have come down a lot. And at least, in the case of Nielsen, it's not going to accept that lower price, it sounds like.

BRIAN SOZZI: Yeah, and was the deal price a little low? Sure, but, you know, I was talking to someone familiar with the thinking here, and this deal is very likely to get done at some point. We'll probably take a couple of more billions, sure. But if I've learned anything by-- from covering the deals that [? Elliott ?] gets involved with it-- and they were the lead player here, and I suspect they are the lead player here even still-- they're not going anywhere anytime soon. Once they dig their heels in, they are likely to stay very, very involved. And that's why I ultimately see this deal getting done.

JULIE HYMAN: Well, Nielsen, for its part, says it is going to start buying back stock, I guess, in order to try and boost its shares to some extent. It approved a billion dollar buyback authorization. So we'll see if that mitigates any of the pain that the stock is feeling from rejecting this deal. It doesn't seem to be the case at this point, but obviously, we'll see what ends up happening with Nielsen. And again, should be interesting given what we've been seeing in the markets here.