Taylor Nelson Sofres

Kantar TNS is a global market research and market information group with offices in over 80 countries. Formerly listed on the London Stock Exchange and a constituent of the FTSE 250 Index, the firm was acquired by WPP Group for £1.6 billion in October 2008, when it became part of WPP's Kantar Group. In April 2019, Kantar announced that it was unifying all its legacy brands (including Kantar TNS) and consolidating all services and offerings under the Kantar brand name. The history of TNS as a market research company began in 1946 with the establishment of National Family Opinion (NFO) in the United States. 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. 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 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. 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. 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.