VNU NV, the Dutch owner of ACNielsen, is considering selling its business information unit, which includes The Hollywood Reporter and Billboard magazine, to win investor support for its planned $7 billion acquisition of IMS Health Inc., The Wall Street Journal reported.

To appease unhappy investors, Haarlem, Netherlands-based VNU could seek to sell its business-information unit, which publishes trade magazines such as The Hollywood Reporter and Billboard. The division could fetch more than $1.2 billion. Billboard is headquartered in New York, but has offices in a number of cities including Los Angeles, Nashville and Washington, D.C.

VNU may sell the division, as well as increasing stock buybacks and even changing its CEO to convince big U.S. mutual funds that VNU is positioned to make the most of the acquisition, the Journal said.

VNU agreed to buy IMS Health on July 11 in a cash and stock transaction, which VNU investors questioned after expressing concern over VNU’s record in digesting big acquisitions such as the $2.3 billion ACNielsen purchase in 2000.

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