TNS Inc. / TNS

About TNS Inc.

11480 Commerce Park Dr., Suite 600, Reston, Va. 20191
www.tnsi.com | 703-453-8300 | Founded: 1991

Industry: Information Technology | Category: Top 100 Companies

Much of the news about TNS last year was not about the business per se, but about the effort by former chief executive John J. McDonnell Jr. to take the public company private again. The founder, who oversaw the company's first initial public offering and its later sale to PSINet in 1999, bought the firm back from PSINet in 2001 at a fraction of the original sale price. In 2004, he took the company public again but then last year led a management group's effort to take it private, with an offer of $22 a share, which was lowered later to $16 a share.
The strategy didn't work. TNS's board voted McDonnell out as chief executive in September, and he left the firm. Henry Graham, the company's former chief financial officer and executive vice president, replaced him.
For the year, TNS swung to a $9.9 million loss, compared with a $5.8 million profit in 2005. Revenue rose 10 percent, to $286 million. In the last three months of 2006, TNS conducted an internal review and trimmed $9.8 million in expenses.
The buyout offer distracted the company during a "turbulent year," Graham said in the company's fourth-quarter earnings announcement. In January 2007, McDonnell submitted a final offer to take the company public at $16 a share, but the TNS board rejected the bid, calling it too low.

2007 Financial Data

Total employees: 622 | Local employees: None