ACNielsen Acquires Beverage Data Network; Acquisition Enables ACNielsen to Provide End-to-End Sales Coverage of the Beverage Alcohol Industry.

SCHAUMBURG, Ill. -- ACNielsen U.S., a subsidiary of VNU, today announced that it has acquired the assets of Beverage Data Network (BDN), the leading supplier of wholesaler sales data to the wines and spirits industry.

The acquisition strengthens ACNielsen's ability to provide end-to-end coverage of the entire Beverage Alcohol industry, and complements ACNielsen's existing services for measuring retail sales of beer, wine and spirits.

"With BDN joining the ACNielsen family, we can now provide Beverage Alcohol clients with the most complete view of industry sales activity available today," said John Lewis, president and CEO of ACNielsen U.S. "Combining BDN's capabilities and coverage with ACNielsen's comprehensive suite of retail measurement, consumer panel and analytical services for the beer, wine and spirits categories will help our clients see the whole story and make more informed business decisions."

ACNielsen currently provides the industry's most comprehensive tracking of beverage alcohol retail sales across grocery, drug, liquor and convenience channels through its ScanTrack(R), LiquorTrack(R) and Convenience Track(R) services; consumer-based insights through its industry-leading Homescan(R) consumer panel; and on-premise audits of a representative sample of more than 2,600 restaurants, bars, nightclubs, hotels and recreational facilities in 26 major U.S. markets.

"As consumers react to new and expanded choices in the beverage alcohol space, it becomes more critical for our clients to understand product movement and purchase behavior across the spectrum of alcohol beverages, through the value chain, and in and out of the home," said Lewis. "We are committed to this client segment, and we look to expand the range of products and services we offer to help our clients manage their businesses."

BDN began collecting and providing data for the Beverage Alcohol industry 21 years ago and now processes wholesaler sales data representing more than 80% of spirits sales and over 60% of wine sales in the U.S. The company will now be considered part of the ACNielsen brand, and most of its 35 employees will continue to be based in Fairfield, NJ. ACNielsen employees dedicated to the management of its Beverage Alcohol clients will continue to be located in various ACNielsen and VNU offices around the U.S. To ensure continuity of the existing BDN business, Steve and Nancy Bliss, former owners of BDN, will continue to work with BDN for the foreseeable future.

About Beverage Data Network

Beverage Data Network (BDN) collects, validates and delivers actual product movement data, tracked from the supplier to the wholesale distributor to the retailer. With more than 30,000 active brand items from over 60 industry suppliers who ship over 23 million cases per month, BDN processes more than 500 thousand inventory depletion records each month from over 850 wholesaler locations, and more than 9 million retail account records from over 370,000 unique on- and off-premise retail locations.

About ACNielsen

ACNielsen, a VNU business, is the world's leading marketing information provider. Offering services in more than 100 countries, the unit provides measurement and analysis of marketplace dynamics and consumer attitudes and behavior. Clients rely on ACNielsen's market research, proprietary products, analytical tools and professional service to understand competitive performance, to uncover new opportunities and to raise the profitability of their marketing and sales campaigns.

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