Kalpana Kalpana (Editor)

Harris Interactive

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Former type
  
Public

Industry
  
Market research

Traded as
  
NASDAQ: HPOL

Founded
  
1997


Predecessor
  
1956 (1956) (Louis Harris & Associates) 1975 (1975) (Gordon S. Black Corporation)

Defunct
  
February 3, 2014 (2014-02-03)

Key people
  
Howard Shecter (Chairman) Al Angrisani (President and CEO)

Headquarters
  
Rochester, New York, United States

Founders
  
Gordon S. Black, Gordon Black

Subsidiaries
  
Wirthlin Worldwide, LLC

Parent organization
  
THE NIELSEN COMPANY US LLC

Analysis of nielsen harris interactive acquisition read vaughn mordecai s blog rbdr 12 2 2013


Harris Interactive, headquartered in Rochester, New York, was a market research firm, known for "The Harris Poll". Harris worked in a wide range of industries, across countries and territories through North America, Europe, and Asia. The company was a member of several research organizations, including the US National Council of Public Polls, the British Polling Council, the Council of American Survey Research Organizations, the US Council for Marketing and Opinion Research, and the UK Market Research Society.

Contents

In November 2013, Nielsen Holdings agreed to purchase Harris Interactive for $116.6 million. The purchase was completed on February 3, 2014. The Harris Poll continues to run and current releases by The Harris Poll can be found on their new website.

History

Harris Interactive was founded by Dr. Gordon S. Black in 1975, then a professor of political science at the University of Rochester in New York. The company was originally named the Gordon S. Black Corporation. In 1996, it acquired Louis Harris & Associates (founded in 1956) from the Gannett Corporation. In 1997, the merged company renamed itself Harris Black International Ltd.

Growth of online polling

In 1997, the Internet was relatively new to the non-technical public. Harris Black International Ltd began exploring its use in the fall of that year. In December 1999, it went public and re-branded itself as Harris Interactive, a name that hinted at the increasing role of interactive surveys on the Internet.

Mergers, acquisitions, and sale of business

The Gordon S. Black Corporation was founded in 1975 as a New York corporation. It formed and became part of the Delaware corporation now known as Harris Interactive in 1997. During these years, the company's acquisitions have included:

  • February 1996 – all of the stock of Louis Harris and Associates, Inc., headquartered in New York.
  • February 2001 – the custom research division of Yankelovich Partners, Inc., headquartered in Norwalk, Connecticut.
  • August 2001 – all of the capital stock of Market Research Solutions Limited, a privately owned UK company headquartered in Oxford, England.
  • September 2001 – all of the capital stock of M&A Create Limited, a privately owned company headquartered in Tokyo, Japan.
  • November 2001 – all of the capital stock of Total Research Corporation, a Delaware corporation headquartered in Princeton, New Jersey.
  • March 2004 – all of the capital stock of Novatris, S.A. ("Novatris"), a share corporation organized and existing under the laws of France.
  • September 2004 – all of the capital stock of Wirthlin Worldwide, Inc. a privately held California corporation headquartered in Reston, Virginia.
  • April 2007 – all of the capital stock of MediaTransfer AG Netresearch & Consulting, a privately held German stock corporation headquartered in Hamburg, Germany.
  • August 2007 – all of the capital stock of Decima Research Inc. ("Decima"), a corporation incorporated in Ontario, Canada.
  • August 2007 – all of the capital stock of Marketshare Limited, a company incorporated under the laws of Hong Kong, and Marketshare Pte Ltd, a company incorporated under the laws of Singapore.
  • February 2014 – Harris Interactive joins Nielsen. Nielsen and its wholly owned subsidiary, Prime Acquisition Corp., completed tender offer to buy all outstanding shares of common stock of Harris Interactive, Inc. (NASDAQ:HPOL). Harris Interactive became a wholly owned subsidiary of Nielsen and its shares ceased to be traded on the NASDAQ Stock Market.
  • June 2014 – ITWP Acquires Harris Interactive UK, Harris Interactive SAS in France, and Harris Interactive AG in Germany from Nielsen.

    • Harris Poll

    The Harris Poll has been running since 1963 and covers a broad variety of topics. In 1997, Harris Interactive began developing an on-line version of The Harris Poll. It has also developed several Internet-based polls in conjunction with other companies.

    References

    Harris Interactive Wikipedia
    (Text) CC BY-SA