(Bloomberg) -- Nielsen Holdings Plc rejected an acquisition proposal from a private equity consortium that had been close to acquiring the company, saying the offer significantly undervalued the company, sending shares plummeting.

Nielsen was down 17% in premarket trading.

Elliott Investment Management and Brookfield Asset Management Inc. had teamed up for a potential leveraged buyout of Nielsen, Bloomberg News had previously reported, that had been days away from being announced. Shares had soared last week on hopes of a deal. 

The proposal had valued the company at $25.40 per share, a price that doesn’t “adequately compensate shareholders for Nielsen’s growth prospects,” the company said in a statement Sunday. Windacre Partnership LLC, one of its largest shareholders, said in a separate statement it supported the rejection of the offer and that the “intrinsic” value of Nielsen is more than $40 per share. 

WindAcre, based in Houston, informed Nielsen that it would not support the proposed transaction and that it planned to accumulate the shares needed to block the deal. For the deal to be approved, Nielsen would have needed holders of at least 75% of its stock not involved in the deal to vote in favor of it, according to the United Kingdom takeover code where the company is domiciled. 

“We do not believe the offer comes close to recognizing Nielsen’s intrinsic value and we were not going to be forced out of our holding at this price,” Windacre Managing Partner Snehal Amin said.

Windacre had signed a confidentiality agreement and held talks to potentially join the consortium before it decided it would pass and oppose the deal, Nielsen said. 

It’s unclear how the private equity group will proceed. Representatives for Elliott and Brookfield didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment. 

Founded in 1923 as a market measuring firm, New York-based Nielsen provides audience data services to many of the media industry’s premier networks. Led by Chief Executive Officer David Kenny, the company had mixed results in adapting to the growth of streaming in the past decade.

Following the rejection of the acquisition bid, Nielsen plans to start buying back its own stock, after having earlier approved a $1 billion share repurchase authorization, the company said in the statement. The repurchases could commence after the company reports first-quarter earnings on April 21. 

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