Profits rise 18% at AC Nielsen

The consumer marketing services business in Ireland might be "competitive", as the directors of AC Nielsen of Ireland Ltd note, but the company seems to be doing just fine.

Accounts for 2013 just filed to the Companies Registration Office show that the Irish subsidiary of the information and measurement multinational enjoyed a pretax profit of €1.96 million last year, up 18 per cent on 2012. Its turnover fell 1.4 per cent to €14.5 million.

The company, which counts many Irish blue chips among its “wide portfolio of clients”, employed 100 people here in 2013, up from an average of 86 employees the year before. It holds the contract for the measurement of television ratings in Ireland and is known worldwide for its expertise in this area.

The Irish subsidiary provides “routine sales and services” to the Nielsen Company (Europe) with respect to certain large clients with which it has contracts across the continent as the multinational moves away from “a country-driven structure” to a more functionally centralised business.

The subsidiary had almost €14 million in shareholders’ funds at the end of 2012 but last year paid a total of €13.5 million in dividends to its sole shareholder, a Dutch-incorporated holding company. A further dividend of €1.5 million was paid last month.

AC Nielsen, founded by American market research pioneer Arthur Charles Nielsen in 1923, says its primary purpose is to "contribute to its customers' success by providing them with a greater understanding of their markets".