Business Description
NIQ Global Intelligence Plc operates as a consumer insights company, deploying an advanced AI-driven platform to meticulously analyze vast shopping data. Its services yield crucial understandings of worldwide consumer behavior, empowering brands, retailers, and various other clients to make well-informed strategic and operational decisions. The firm's activities are geographically segmented into three main areas: the Americas (covering both North and Latin America), EMEA (Europe, the Middle East, and Africa), and APAC (encompassing Asia and the western Pacific). NIQ was established on June 6, 2017, and its corporate headquarters are located in Chicago, Illinois.
Business History
Generated: Jun 3, 2026 8:15pmPrice Overview
Last updated: Jun 27, 2026 8:03am (just now)Price History (1 Year)
Revenue & Net Income Trend
| Period | Revenue | Net Income | Net Margin | YoY/QoQ |
|---|
Key Metrics
EPS (Diluted): -1.32
Total Equity: $988.40M
Shares: 266,917,808
Total Debt: $3.61B
Cash: $518.80M
EBITDA: $752.10M
Total Debt: $3.61B
Cash: $518.80M
Revenue: $4.20B
Shares: 266,917,808
Revenue: $4.20B
Revenue: $4.20B
Revenue: $4.20B
Total Equity: $988.40M
Tax Rate: -64.6%
Equity: $988.40M
Total Debt: $3.61B
Cash: $518.80M
Current Liabilities: $1.40B
Long-Term Debt: $3.50B
Total Debt: $3.61B
Total Equity: $988.40M
Shares: 266,917,808
Shares: 266,917,808
CapEx: -$274.80M
Shares: 266,917,808
Stock Price: $8.63
Net Income: -$353.30M
Industry Benchmarks
Advanced Analysis Forensic deep-dive · three lenses
The headline tells you NIQ is a $4.2B revenue 'global standard' data platform with 55.6% gross margins, finally inflecting to positive op margin (3.4%) and positive FCF ($23.9M). The forensic picture says something much harsher: net debt of $3.09B against $518.8M cash means net debt is ~127% of the $2.43B market cap — this is a levered equity stub, not a SaaS-like platform stock. Altman Z of 0.5 is squarely in distress territory, and revenue growth has collapsed from 22% (2022→23) to 12% (23→24) to 2.2% (24→25). That last datapoint is the single most important number in this memo and it's catastrophic for the 'essential data layer' narrative.
FCF quality is also weaker than it looks: $23.9M of FCF on $4.2B of revenue is a 0.6% FCF margin, and OCF/NI of -0.28x with -10.1% accruals tells you the cash and the accounting earnings are not telling the same story. Share count jumped from 245M to 266.9M (+8.9%) in a single year — far above the 2.9% CAGR headline — consistent with IPO-related issuance that the dilution module hasn't fully digested, and a warning that SBC and equity issuance are real per-share headwinds going forward.
The insider tape, advertised upstream as 'significant buying,' is mostly noise: 7 of the 15 recent transactions are director A-Awards (free stock, not conviction), several are F-InKind tax withholdings. The ONLY real open-market buy is CEO James Peck's $1.0M purchase on 5/18/26 — meaningful but a single data point, and it came AFTER he received a 276.6K share award in February. Not a cluster, not a signal worth leaning on. The bull narrative (platform monopoly, AI moat) is at odds with 2% revenue growth; either pricing/volume is being lost to competitors the bear case names (Amazon, first-party data), or this business is structurally ex-growth at scale.
Deep Analysis
Pre-flight intelligence scans the company first, then routes to the right analytical methods.
Income Statement (Annual)
Last updated: Jun 23, 2026 7:32am (4d ago)| Metric | 2022 | 2023 | 2024 | 2025 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Revenue | $3.0B | $3.7B | $4.1B | $4.2B |
| Cost of Revenue | $1.5B | $1.7B | $1.8B | $1.9B |
| Gross Profit | $1.5B | $2.0B | $2.3B | $2.3B |
| Operating Expenses | $1.7B | $2.1B | $2.4B | $2.2B |
| Operating Income | -$191.3M | -$119.5M | -$103.3M | $141.8M |
| Net Income | -$320.6M | -$632.0M | -$839.3M | -$353.3M |
| EBITDA | $166.7M | $265.4M | $328.0M | $752.1M |
| EPS | $-1.30 | $-2.58 | $-3.43 | $-1.32 |
| EPS (Diluted) | — | — | — | — |
Balance Sheet (Annual)
Last updated: Jun 23, 2026 7:32am (4d ago)| Metric | 2022 | 2023 | 2024 | 2025 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cash & Equivalents | $155.7M | $310.6M | $273.2M | $518.8M |
| Total Current Assets | $868.1M | $1.7B | $1.2B | $1.5B |
| Total Assets | $4.2B | $8.1B | $6.6B | $6.8B |
| Current Liabilities | $1.1B | $1.5B | $1.4B | $1.4B |
| Long-Term Debt | $2.2B | $4.4B | $4.1B | $3.5B |
| Total Liabilities | $3.6B | $6.7B | $6.1B | $5.6B |
| Total Equity | $582.0M | $1.2B | $256.8M | $988.4M |
| Retained Earnings | -$523.7M | -$1.1B | -$1.7B | -$2.2B |
Cash Flow (Annual)
Last updated: Jun 23, 2026 7:32am (4d ago)| Metric | 2022 | 2023 | 2024 | 2025 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Operating Cash Flow | $66.1M | -$12.0M | $76.5M | $298.7M |
| Capital Expenditure | -$329.2M | -$299.8M | -$309.3M | -$274.8M |
| Free Cash Flow | -$263.0M | -$311.8M | -$232.8M | $23.9M |
| Acquisitions (net) | -$110.0M | -$1.6B | $315.0M | $41.0M |
| Debt Repayment | — | — | — | — |
| Dividends Paid | — | — | — | — |
| Stock Buybacks | $0 | $0 | $0 | $0 |
| Net Change in Cash | -$116.3M | $170.8M | -$17.3M | $252.6M |
Analyst Estimates (Annual)
Last updated: Jun 27, 2026 4:42am (3h ago)| Metric | 2025 | 2026 | 2027 | 2028 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Revenue |
$4.2B $4.2B – $4.2B
|
$4.5B $4.5B – $4.5B
|
$4.7B $4.7B – $4.7B
|
$4.9B $4.9B – $4.9B
|
| EBITDA |
$1.4B $1.4B – $1.4B
|
$1.5B $1.5B – $1.5B
|
$1.6B $1.6B – $1.6B
|
$1.7B $1.7B – $1.7B
|
| Net Income |
$76.4M $66.2M – $86.6M
|
$260.4M $257.7M – $263.0M
|
$321.4M $289.8M – $353.0M
|
$383.5M $382.5M – $384.5M
|
| EPS | — | — | — | — |
Growth Trends (YoY %)
Last updated: Jun 23, 2026 7:32am (4d ago)| Metric | 2023 | 2024 | 2025 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Revenue Growth | +22.4% | +11.9% | +2.1% |
| Gross Profit Growth | +33.5% | +13.3% | +2.5% |
| Operating Income Growth | +37.5% | +13.6% | +237.2% |
| Net Income Growth | -97.2% | -32.8% | +57.9% |
| EBITDA Growth | +59.1% | +23.6% | +129.3% |
Insider Trading (Recent)
Last updated: Jun 27, 2026 4:42am (3h ago)All SEC Form 4 codes
- P Purchase
- Open-market or private purchase of shares.
- S Sale
- Open-market or private sale of shares.
- A Award / grant
- Grant or award of securities (RSUs, options, etc.) under Rule 16b-3.
- D Return to issuer
- Securities disposed back to the company under Rule 16b-3.
- F In-kind (tax)
- Shares withheld or delivered to pay the option-exercise price or tax — not an open-market sale.
- I Discretionary
- Discretionary transaction under an employee plan — Rule 16b-3(f).
- M Option exercise
- Exercise or conversion of a derivative (option/RSU) into shares — exempt.
- C Conversion
- Conversion of a derivative security into the underlying shares.
- E Short expiration
- Expiration of a short derivative position.
- H Long expiration
- Expiration or cancellation of a long derivative position with value received.
- O OTM exercise
- Exercise of an out-of-the-money derivative.
- X ITM exercise
- Exercise of an in-the-money or at-the-money derivative.
- G Gift
- Bona fide gift of securities.
- L Small acquisition
- Small acquisition under Rule 16a-6.
- W Inheritance
- Acquisition or disposition by will or the laws of descent.
- Z Voting trust
- Deposit into or withdrawal from a voting trust.
- J Other
- Other acquisition or disposition (explained in a Form 4 footnote).
- K Equity swap
- Transaction in an equity swap or similar instrument.
- U Tender / buyout
- Disposition via tender of shares in a change-of-control transaction.
Compensation-plan codes (A, D, F, M) are routine and rarely directional. Open-market P (buy) and S (sale) carry the most signal.
| Date | Insider | Type | Shares | Price | Value |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2026-06-17 | TREANGEN TROY | 0.00 | $0.00 | $0 | |
| 2026-06-17 | TREANGEN TROY | 0.00 | $0.00 | $0 | |
| 2026-05-28 | Hamood Samuel A | A-Award | 22,182.00 | $0.00 | $0 |
| 2026-05-28 | LACHMAN TODD R | A-Award | 22,182.00 | $0.00 | $0 |
| 2026-05-28 | Klein-Boelting Ralf | A-Award | 22,182.00 | $0.00 | $0 |
| 2026-05-28 | Lempres Elizabeth Cahill | A-Award | 22,182.00 | $0.00 | $0 |
| 2026-05-28 | Rawlinson David | A-Award | 22,182.00 | $0.00 | $0 |
| 2026-05-28 | Mason Racquel Harris | A-Award | 22,182.00 | $0.00 | $0 |
| 2026-05-28 | Simonelli Charlotte C | A-Award | 22,182.00 | $0.00 | $0 |
| 2026-05-18 | Peck James M | P-Purchase | 118,625.00 | $8.43 | $1.0M |
| 2026-05-06 | Palm Jamie E | F-InKind | 891.00 | $10.54 | $9,391 |
| 2026-05-06 | Blenke John W | F-InKind | 850.00 | $10.54 | $8,959 |
| 2026-05-06 | Zitting Shaun Ellen | F-InKind | 1,516.00 | $10.54 | $15,979 |
| 2026-02-18 | Peck James M | A-Award | 276,558.00 | $0.00 | $0 |
| 2026-02-18 | Kapoor Mohit | A-Award | 52,678.00 | $0.00 | $0 |
| 2026-02-18 | Miller Curtis John | A-Award | 39,508.00 | $0.00 | $0 |
| 2026-02-18 | Zitting Shaun Ellen | A-Award | 39,508.00 | $0.00 | $0 |
| 2026-02-18 | Blenke John W | A-Award | 39,508.00 | $0.00 | $0 |
| 2026-02-18 | Burwell Michael J | A-Award | 65,847.00 | $0.00 | $0 |
| 2026-02-18 | Palm Jamie E | A-Award | 12,335.00 | $0.00 | $0 |
Narrative Economics
market-narrative step).
Delvantic AI Findings
The raw numbers tell a story the synthesis layer is reading roughly correctly but framing slightly wrong. Revenue trajectory is $3.00B → $3.67B → $4.11B → $4.20B — that's a decelerating ramp (22% → 12% → 2.2% YoY), not a growth story. The 2.1% recent YoY is the tell: this is a mature data business, not a pre-profit growth platform. The classification engine's "pre_profit_growth" tag is wrong. NIQ has been around for decades (it's the old Nielsen IQ measurement business carved out by Advent in 2021); the losses aren't growth investment, they're interest expense and amortization on an LBO capital structure. Operating income actually flipped positive in 2025 ($141.8M op income on $4.20B rev = 3.4% op margin) from -$103M in 2024. That's the real signal — operating leverage is showing up, but net income is still -$353M because of debt service.
The synthesis verdict ("debt restructuring option, $3.6B debt overwhelms $24M FCF") is the most useful frame here, though I can't independently verify the $3.6B debt figure since the balance sheet tile shows "—" for total debt. EV/revenue of 1.85x against P/S of 1.05x implies roughly $1.7B of net debt-equivalent above the $2.43B market cap — call it ~$1.8B enterprise debt net of $519M cash, so gross debt likely $2.3B+. That's lower than the synthesis claims but still crushing: $298.7M operating cash flow minus $274.8M capex = $23.9M FCF, and interest on $2B+ of LBO debt at 7-9% eats $140-180M/year. The FCF number is essentially a rounding error against the capital structure. The "Significant Insider Buying" signal (118,625 share P-Purchase on 5/18) is interesting but at $8.22 that's <$1M — not the conviction signal it would be at 10x the size.
Where I disagree with the models: the narrative engine calling this "platform-monopoly" with "moderate durability" is too generous. NIQ's core syndicated retail measurement business is genuinely under attack from retailer first-party data (Amazon Marketing Cloud, Walmart Luminate, Kroger 84.51°), and Circana (the IRI/NPD merger) is a direct scaled competitor. The 55.6% gross margin is fine for data services but isn't expanding — it's been stuck at 55% for three years. That's not a platform compounding; that's a service business at scale. The "Lagging Sector Peers" sector signal is correct and more important than the narrative layer wants to admit. A contrarian bull case exists: if NIQ refinances post-IPO at lower rates, the operating income inflection drops to net income and this is a $15 stock. But that requires (a) rates cooperating, (b) revenue reaccelerating above 5%, and (c) no covenant trip in the interim. Three conditional bets stacked.
I agree with "Disconnected from Fundamentals" but for a different reason than the synthesis states: it's not that traditional metrics are irrelevant, it's that the equity is a levered call option on operational execution where the strike price is debt paydown. At $8.22 with $2.43B market cap, you're paying ~17x the $141.8M operating income for the equity stub above a debt pile. If you believe op income compounds to $300M+ by 2027 (plausible given the trajectory), the equity could double. If revenue growth stays at 2% and they trip a covenant in a 2026 recession, equity goes to zero. The decelerating quarterly trend ($1.22B Q2'25 → $1.05B Q3'25 → $1.14B Q4'25 → $1.07B Q1'26) is alarming and the models underweight it — there's clear sequential softness that the "Good Revenue Confidence" tag glosses over. I'd dissent from any "starter position" framing: this is a special-situations credit-adjacent trade, not a fundamentals long.
GPT Critique
The recent revenue trajectory for NIQ indicates a decelerating growth pattern, with annual revenues increasing from $3.00B in 2022 to $4.20B in 2025 but showing a sharp slowdown recently at just 2.1% YoY growth. This aligns with Opus’s identification of a decelerating ramp rather than a robust growth story. The operating income turning positive in 2025 is notable, signaling some operational leverage with a 3.4% operating margin, but the net income remains deeply negative, heavily influenced by the debt service on their assumed LBO structure. The discrepancy between the synthesis's suggested $3.6B debt and the implied $2.3B+ from market cap and EV metrics is crucial, indicating potential underestimations of financial strain. The cash flow situation is particularly precarious, with a mere $23.9M in FCF against a backdrop of significant capex and potential interest expenses of $140-180M annually.
I agree with Opus's conclusion that the classification of NIQ as a "pre_profit_growth" entity is misleading. The revenue growth and financial metrics point towards a mature business facing structural profitability challenges, not an emerging growth platform. Opus's assertion that the company's core business is under competitive pressure from first-party data providers is consistent with the stagnant gross margin and the sector's competitive landscape. The insider buying, while noted, isn't significant enough in volume to offset the broader financial concerns.
However, I diverge from Opus's view on the narrative engine's "platform-monopoly" designation. While I concur that NIQ's competitive moat is under threat, the narrative's moderate durability reflects the company's entrenched position in consumer intelligence, albeit eroding. The "Good Revenue Confidence" signal is indeed misleading given the sequential revenue softness, which should raise red flags about future growth stability.
A careful skeptic might argue that both Opus and I are underestimating NIQ's potential to pivot strategically or capitalize on refinancing opportunities to alleviate debt pressures. Additionally, the market might be undervaluing the company's ability to leverage its AI-powered platform for renewed growth in emerging markets.