Nielsen continues to reduce leverage, expects 0.5x decrease in 2012

By Aleesia Forni

Columbus, Ohio, Feb. 6 - Nielsen Holdings NV expects to reduce leverage by roughly 0.5 times during the upcoming fiscal year.

"We will continue to deleverage," chief executive officer Dave Calhoun said during the company's fourth-quarter earnings call on Monday. "We would like to take this down another half a turn, and we believe we can."

"A lot of our focus is going to be going after the high-coupon notes," Calhoun added during the question-and-answer portion of the conference call.

The company also paid down $382 million of debt during 2011, including $229 million during the fourth quarter, and reduced debt leverage to 4 times.

"Our financial policy is and has been to reduce risk, reduce leverage and increase our financial flexibility, and we're very pleased with the way we've de-risked it over time and particularly this year," chief financial officer Brian West said during the earnings call.

The company refinanced $1.2 billion of its existing 2013 term loan maturities with a new five-year facility, which it considers a "meaningful step towards de-risking."

"We're very pleased with this transaction," West said. "We think it continues to move the stack out at a rate that's very attractive."

The company has no "meaningful" maturities for the next four years.

Nielsen is a New York-based provider of information and analytics about what consumers buy and watch.

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