Taylor Nelson Sofres recently ruled itself out of buying NFO after it said it would not issue equity to fund an acquisition.
However, a report in the Sunday Times this weekend says the British firm has agreed a 拢300m price and has seen off competition for the business from rival bids.
The 拢300m is a lot less than the Interpublic Group of Companies was initially looking for, but with no prospect of the downturn ending this year it is a buyer's market.
United Business Media and WPP Group had already dropped out, leaving just the Carat-owning Aegis Group in the race alongside Taylor Nelson. French media firm Ipsos had also been in the running.
United and WPP dropped out of the race having refused the price that Interpublic had been demanding. WPP thought to be willing to pay no more than $400m (拢253.6m).
Interpublic recently uncovered another $165.7m in charges going back to 1997 and said that profits for the fourth quarter of 2002 had fallen to $20.3m, the result of a collapse of profits at McCann-Erickson WorldGroup. The charges come on top of $181.3m already uncovered last year.
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