Unilever Nets £4m from BrainJuicer Share Sale

In the UK, home products giant Unilever has sold nearly half its shares in online market research specialist BrainJuicer - equivalent to around 16% of the company - raising around £4.1m in the process.

BrainJuicer was founded in 1999 by John Kearon, who began his career as a researcher with Unilever before moving to brand management and planning roles at Elida Gibbs and Publicis, and founding his own branding consultancy, Brand Genetics.

Unilever initially invested £550k in Kearon's firm in 2003, for an equity stake of approximately 40%.

This April, Unilever and Kearon each sold 325,000 shares back to the company in order to set up an equity-based incentive scheme for BrainJuicer's employees and management. The firm paid around £1m in total. This left Kearon with 42.1% of shares, and Unilever with a 36.8% stake in the firm.

By selling a further 2,070,000 ordinary shares at 200 pence each, Unilever's investment in BrainJuicer has been reduced to 20% of shares and voting rights.

Web sites: www.unilever.co.uk and www.brainjuicer.com .