Macromill Swaps Shares in Research Firms

In Tokyo, online research firm Macromill has sold most of its shares in Asian sample specialist AIP Corporation, and instead bought Brand Data Bank (BDB), which provides marketing database services. The deal is valued at nearly 147m yen ($1.6m).

Macromill has acquired the entire share capital of BDB, a Shibuya, Tokyo-based provider of marketing research services, from Hikaru Sakia, the firm's President and other investors such as Nippon Telene.

To fund the deal, Macromill has sold a 55.4% stake in AIP Corporation to Mizuho Capital, while keeping a minority stake in the business.

The firm expects the move will contribute to it beating its earnings target for the year ending June 2010. It is predicting that group pre-tax profit will climb 23% to 2.3bn yen ($23.1m), exceeding a previous forecast by around 100m yen.

Tokyo-based Macromill, which recorded its first-ever pre-tax profit decline in the year ended June 30, has recently been restructuring under the leadership of founder and Chairman Tetsuya Sugimoto.

His firm has a proprietary automatic online research system which instantly collects consumer response on products and services, as well as its own Japanese panel, comprising around 861,000 panellists.

Web sites: www.macromill.com , www.asia-info.com and www.branddatabank.com .