Arbitron Inc. (NYSE: ARB) announced today that at the Company’s Special Meeting of Stockholders held today, stockholders voted to approve the acquisition of the Company by Nielsen Holdings N.V. Approximately 98.99 percent of the shares voting at today’s Special Meeting of Stockholders voted in favor of the agreement and plan of merger. These shares represented approximately 77.11 percent of total outstanding shares of Arbitron common stock as of the March 8, 2013 record date for the Special Meeting.
As previously announced on December 18, 2012, Arbitron Inc. and Nielsen Holdings N.V. entered into a definitive agreement for Nielsen to acquire all of the outstanding common stock of Arbitron for $48.00 per share in cash. The transaction remains subject to certain regulatory approvals, including expiration of the Hart-Scott-Rodino antitrust waiting period, and customary closing conditions. The proposal to approve, on an advisory (non-binding) basis, the compensation that may be paid or become payable to Arbitron named executive officers in connection with the merger and the agreements and understandings pursuant to which such compensation may be paid or become payable was approved by 87.86 percent of the shares voted at the Special Meeting, representing approximately 68.44 percent of the outstanding shares of the Company’s common stock.
At the meeting, approximately 9.55 percent of shares voted against this proposal. About ArbitronArbitron Inc. (NYSE: ARB) is an international media and marketing research firm serving the media”radio, television, cable and out-of-home; the mobile industry as well as advertising agencies and advertisers around the world. Arbitron’s businesses include: measuring network and local market radio audiences across the United States; surveying the retail, media and product patterns of U.S. consumers; providing mobile audience measurement and analytics in the United States, Europe, and Asia, and developing application software used for analyzing media audience and marketing information data.
The Company has developed the Portable People Meter ™ (PPM �) and the PPM 360™, new technologies for media and marketing research.
