One of the worlds largest business media companies has begun to settle into into its new life as a private company. VNU has had a troubled recent history with shareholders revolting over strategy and the CEO losing his job. The recent public to private transaction which leaves private equity combine Valcon in charge, will give the company a fresh start.
With former UBM CEO Clive Hollick on the board (representing the interests of Valcon partner, KKR and a new US operational CEO in Bob Krakoff (formerly Reed and Advanstar) the firm has some well known business media heavy hitters.
One irony here is that Hollick sold much of his Miller Freeman trade show and magazine business to VNU in the period when he thought that he and Michael Green were going to to be the unifiers of ITV.
Meanwhile the challenges for VNU have not changed. It has to decide what business it is in. Most experts expect growlers to fall away in a sell off of non core assets. Expect more news from them sooner rather than later.
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