Kantar owners eye break-up of group, $6.5 billion Worldpanel sale, reports say

(Reuters) - Market research group Kantar's owners are exploring the sale of its Worldpanel division for 5 billion pounds ($6.5 billion) or more, Sky News reported on Sunday, while in a separate report the Financial Times said Kantar is set to be broken up and sold.

Kantar's owners Bain Capital and advertising group WPP declined to comment on the reports, while Kantar did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

The Sky report said the move by Bain and WPP to sell Worldpanel - which runs consumer panels globally - is yet to be finalized. Any such deal would leave Kantar as a standalone brand-strategy consultancy, it said.

In January, Kantar sold its television audience rating unit to buyout fund H.I.G Capital for about $1 billion. Kantar had acquired Chicago-based data company Numerator in 2021, and merged it with the Worldpanel division in January 2025.

The FT said Bain and WPP had previously been weighing up an IPO for the remaining business of Kantar, but they were now seeking to sell its major divisions.

WPP sold a 60% stake in Kantar to Bain in 2019, valuing the company at 3.2 billion pounds at the time.

($1 = 0.7740 pounds)

(Reporting by Kritika Singh in Bengaluru; Editing by David Holmes)