subsidiary industry marketing founded 1997 ; 19 years ago 1997 headquarters london england uk key people richard ingleton ceo will galgey ceo uk chris riquier ceo asia pacific services market research revenue 1 068 million 2007 1 operating income 102.7 million 2007 1 profit 58.5 million 2007 1 owner kantar group a division of the wpp group number of employees 15 270 2007 1 website www.tnsglobal.com tns formerly known as taylor nelson sofres is a leading market research and market information group . formerly listed on the london stock exchange and a constituent of the ftse 250 index the firm was acquired by wpp group in october 2008 for 1.6 billion pounds . contents 1 history 2 operations 3 financial performance 3.1 top ten of the market research sector 2006 4 see also 5 references history edit the history of tns as a market research company began in 1946 with the establishment of national family opinion nfo in the united states . 2 since then various mergers and acquisitions involving large companies from the us europe and asia pacific eventually became the taylor nelson sofres group . the 1960s saw the establishment of the six main companies that today form part of tns . starting with nfo in the 1940s intersearch in the us in 1960 ; then agb in the uk in 1962 ; sofres in france in 1963 ; frank small associates fsa in australia in 1964 ; taylor nelson in the uk in 1965 . 2 over the 60s 70s 80s and 90s these companies grew significantly as individual businesses . the 1990s and early years of the new millennium saw consolidation in the industry . in 1991 agb and taylor nelson merged to create taylor nelson agb in 1991 in 1992 sofres acquired secodip . in 1997 sofres combined with fsa . in 1997 sofres acquired intersearch and then merged with taylor nelson agb thus creating tns . in 1998 taylor nelson sofres acquired chilton market research followed by cmr in 2000 and the nfo worldgroup in 2003 . 3 2 in 2006 a class action lawsuit was filed against tns alleging that it failed to disclose major financial information in a registration statement associated with the company s secondary offering . 4 the tns group continues to grow mainly by acquiring small research companies to strengthen its position in markets in which it already has a presence . for example in december 2007 tns acquired landis strategy & innovation in the united states a specialist research based consultancy . 5 tns logo that was used between 2003 2012 . in the same month tns announced that it had reached agreement to increase its ownership of latinpanel holdings from 33.3 % to 100 % . tns was formerly a joint venture partner with the npd group and the ibope group in this continuous consumer panel business serving latin america operating in 15 countries in latin america and covering 96 % of the region s gdp providing local and international clients with access to a household research panel across the packaged groceries toiletries and cosmetics fresh foods and textile retail markets . 6 in early march 2008 tns announced the merging of its north american operating units tns media intelligence tns media research with the recently acquired firms compete and cymfony to create tns media group . 7 8 on 29 april 2008 tns announced that it was in talks to merge with german market research company gfk . 9 the announcement was followed in may by two conditional offers from wpp to buy tns for a combination of cash and shares both of which were rejected by tns s board . the hostile wpp bid led to gfk and tns abandoning their merger plans . gfk sought without success to find backing for a rival offer leaving wpp s hostile bid as the only one on the table . on 9 october 2008 wpp declared that its latest bid had been successful and that it was buying tns for 1.93 bn . 10 tns now sits in wpp s kantar group . many kantar subsidiary companies are currently undergoing restructuring and rebranding as a result of the tns deal . tns itself will see various units either merged with other kantar units or spun out into separate kantar entities . in 2013 tns acquired sinotrust market research 11 a leading market research and consulting company in china . on 8th september 2016 tns was rebranded as kantar tns . operations edit tns is structured around specific areas of marketing expertise brand & communication ; innovation & product development ; retail & shopper ; customer experience ; employee engagement ; qualitative ; automotive ; and political & social . tns separates its worldwide operations in over eighty three countries into a number of regional divisions north america ; northern europe ; southern europe ; asia pacific ; latin america ; and africa mediterranean and middle east . logo in 2003 when company went from being taylor nelson sofres with several local names to one unified tns a new logo was designed . wolff olins was the agency behind the 2003 rebrand . then in early 2012 the old logo was altered further . financial performance edit top ten of the market research sector 2006 edit rank company sales in 2006 million usd growth in % 1 nielsen company 2 5.6 2 ims health inc. 1 958.6 8.9 3 tns 1 851.1 6 4 kantar group 1 401.4 4.1 5 gfk ag 1 397.3 5.4 6 ipsos 1 077.0 6.5 7 synovate 739.6 9.5 8 iri 665.0 6.6 9 westat 425.8 0.8 10 arbitron 329.3 5.9 see also edit vtsiom computer assisted telephone interviewing computer assisted personal interviewing computer assisted web interviewing official statistics data mining nipo software spss cold calling custom online panel references edit a b c d annual report 2007 pdf . taylor nelson sofres . retrieved 2008 08 11 . a b c a history of success delivering market research & insight cahners sells chilton research services to taylor nelson agb the law firm of goldman scarlato & karon p.c. announces class action lawsuit against tns inc. . april 5 2006 . retrieved jul 25 2013 . landis market research snapped up by tns tns increases stake in latinpanel holdings tns integrates media and advertising monitoring units tns media gfk and tns talking merger to challenge nielson wpp s pursuit of tns ends in 1.93 bn buy http online.wsj.com article bt co 20130513 702111.html v t e wpp divisions and subsidiaries advertising bates chi cohn & wolfe essence communications grey global group jwt digitaria ogilvy & mather ogilvy commonhealth asia pacific scholz & friends sudler & hennessey taxi tenthavenue candyspace forward joule tmarc vml wpp scangroup wunderman the united network young & rubicam burson marsteller media investment management groupm mediacom mec mindshare maxus tenthavenue shopper2buyer spafax kantar group graphic kantar added value kantar futures kantar health kantar imrb kantar media kantar media philippines kantar millward brown affectiva kantar retail kantar tns compete.com kantar vermeer kantar worldpanel lightspeed public relations & public affairs dewey square group finsbury the glover park group hill & knowlton penn schoen & berland quinn gillespie & associates branding & identity the brand union fitch lambie nairn landor associates the partners ray and keshavan tenthavenue kinetic worldwide specialist communications hogarth worldwide wpp digital 24 7 real media blue state digital people philip lader martin sorrell category retrieved from https en.wikipedia.org w index.php title taylor nelson sofres & oldid 740517660 categories companies based in londoncompanies formerly listed on the london stock exchangemarketing research companies of the united kingdompublic opinion research companiescompanies established in 1997wpp plc navigation menu personal tools not logged intalkcontributionscreate accountlog in namespaces article talk variants views read edit view history more search navigation main pagecontentsfeatured contentcurrent eventsrandom articledonate to wikipediawikipedia store interaction helpabout wikipediacommunity portalrecent changescontact page tools what links hererelated changesupload filespecial pagespermanent linkpage informationwikidata itemcite this page print export create a bookdownload as pdfprintable version languages asturianudeutschfran aisitaliano svenska ti ng vi t edit links this page was last modified on 21 september 2016 at 15 21 . text is available under the creative commons attribution sharealike license ; 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