HAARLEM, Holland: VNU, parent company for the ACNielsen family of brands, has unveiled a radical restructuring plan that will mean the loss of up to 4,000 jobs.

Ceo David Calhoun, a former General Electric executive appointed after VNU's €7.6 billion ($10bn; £5.1bn) acquisition by a private equity consortium [WARC News: 24-Aug-06], says the strategy aims to cut the cost base by 10% over the coming year.

VNU will combine product innovation, research and development and marketing into a single entity and will begin the introduction of "a unified, global client service organization".

The company recently announced Nielsen Connect [WARC News: 30-Nov-06], a data warehousing service that will integrate information from VNU consumer-research units worldwide.

Data sourced from Financial Times online; additional content by WARC staff