Nielsen's Subsidiaries Price $800M Senior Notes - Analyst Blog

Nielsen Holdings N.V.'s NLSN subsidiaries — Nielsen Finance LLC and Nielsen Finance Co. — recently announced the pricing of 5% Senior Unsecured Notes aggregating $800 million due in 2022 in a private offering.

The new notes will trade interchangeably with the previously issued $750 million of 5.0% Senior Notes due 2022, all of which remain outstanding. The new notes are expected to be issued on Jul 8, subject to customary closing conditions.

Nielsen stated that the net proceeds would be used to redeem the outstanding 7.75% Senior Notes due 2018 and other related fees and expenses.

Additionally, earlier this month, Nielsen announced a secondary public offering of 20 million shares. All the proceeds from the offering were received by the selling stockholders, Valcon Acquisition Holding, and it did not have any significant impact on Nielsen's overall financial position.

Nielsen Holdings N.V. is an information and measurement company which provides media and marketing information and analytics about what consumers watch (consumer interaction with television, online and mobile) and buy on a global and local basis. In the recently concluded quarter, Nielsen's net debt position was $6.35 billion and net debt leverage ratio was 3.78x.

The company's revenues increased 12.9% year over year to $1,489 million or 15.1% on a constant currency basis. However, earnings of 41 cents beat the Zacks Consensus Estimate of 38 cents on the back of higher revenues.

Currently, Nielsen has a Zacks Rank #2 (Buy). Other stocks that are performing well at current levels include Applied Micro Circuits AMCC, Exar Corp. EXAR and PLX Technology Inc PLXT. All these stocks sport a Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy).