Tchibo Billionaires May Be GfK Backers

GfK is said to be discussing financial backing for its counter offer for TNS with Mayfair, the Hamburg investment vehicle owned by billionaire siblings Günter and Daniela Herz, who inherited their wealth from their coffee magnate father.

GfK's original plans to merge with TNS were shelved earlier this week, following a hostile bid for TNS from UK communications group WPP. GfK is trying to obtain private equity to fund its own bid, although the firm said yesterday that a formal bid is not a certainty.

Neither GfK nor Mayfair would confirm the reports of talks, appearing in the German press.

The Herz family inherited their wealth from their father Max, who built the family coffee import business Tchibo into a major German conglomerate. The siblings were bought out of Tchibo Holdings in 2003 for around $4.5bn (£2.3bn), after which they bought a 16.9% stake in sports goods firm Puma.

Today a number of TNS investors took advantage of the company's high share price and sold their stakes in the business. Fidelity, the largest TNS shareholder, offloaded 10.7 million shares at 272p thereby reducing its holding by 2.6% to 8.6%, while Investec sold 4.3 million shares, reducing its stake to 0.2%.

Web sites: www.gfk.com and www.tnsglobal.com .

All articles 2006-23 written and edited by Mel Crowther and/or Nick Thomas, 2024- by Nick Thomas, unless otherwise stated.

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