• by Steve McClellan  @mp_mcclellan, July 10, 2012

Kantar, WPP’s market research operation, has entered into “binding agreements” to acquire control of media-monitoring company Press Index.

WPP estimated the value of the company at approximately $17 million and said Kantar paid about $8.35 a share for the 87% of the firm, held by company founders and other shareholders.

The holding company said it would soon issue a tender offer for the remaining shares, which are traded on the Alternext NYSE Euronext exchange in Paris.

WPP said it would offer the same price for those shares as it paid for the initial 87% stake. That’s about 20% lower than WPP anticipated paying a month ago, when negotiations were still ongoing for the controlling shares.

Founded in 1997 and headquartered in Boulogne Billancourt (near Paris), Press Index is one of the larger European outfits offering monitoring services to PR firms, their clients and other marketers. The company monitors both off-line and on-line media channels to provide clients with a sense of how their companies and products are perceived by consumers.  

Press Index, currently overseen by co-founder and CEO Manuel Zebeida, claims more than 4,500 clients worldwide. It monitors over 60,000 media sources.

The firm went public in 2006 and launched a search engine to track pan-European media in 2009. A year later, it unveiled its social-media monitoring platform.

Clients include Procter & Gamble, McDonald’s, Google, Weber Shandwick and Havas.

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