Nielsen Holdings Reports 1Q Loss On Costs

(RTTNews) — Information and measurement services company Nielsen Holdings N.V. (NLSN: News ), which went public in January with its IPO, Thursday reported a net loss for the first quarter, hurt mostly by significant IPO related charges. Earnings were also impacted by increased cost of sales and selling overheads.

Nonetheless, excluding special items, adjusted earnings came in significantly higher than when compared to the prior year, the news of which helped Nielsen shares gain over 4.4 percent in afternoon trade.

Nielsen, which provides critical media and marketing information, said first quarter net loss was $182 million or $0.55 per share for the quarter. This compares with a net profit of $42 million or $0.15 per share in the previous year.

Results for the quarter include charges of $206 million associated with the company’s PO that was completed in January this year. Excluding special items, adjusted income for the quarter was $64 million or $0.19 per share, compared with $16 million or $0.16 per share in the prior year.

On average, 9 analysts polled by Thomson Reuters expected earnings of $0.19 per share for the quarter. Analysts’ estimates typically exclude special items.

Revenues for the quarter grew 8.9 percent to $1.3 billion from $1.12 billion last year. Wall Street analysts expected revenues of $1.26 billion for the quarter.

Nielsen attributed the revenue growth to a 9.8 percent increase in ‘Buy’ segment, a 6.4 percent improvement in ‘Watch’ segment, and a 14.3 percent climb in ‘Expositions’ segment.

Nevertheless, revenue growth was offset by an increase in cost of sales to $549 million from $520 million last year. Selling and administrative overheads also jumped to $543 million from $400 million a year ago.

As of March 31, 2011, the company’s net debts totaled $6.5 billion.

On January 26, 2011, Nielsen completed its IPO of 82.14 million shares at $23 per share and a concurrent offering of mandatory convertible subordinated bonds for total net proceeds from both offerings of approximately $2.1 billion. Proceeds from the offering were used to retire $1.75 billion of debt.

NLSN is trading at $29.99, up $1.27 or 4.42%, on a volume of 0.8 million shares on the NYSE.