Van EykResearch has expanded the number of shareholders in the group, boosting the level of external ownership of the research house to 32 per cent.
The research house says it has made the move in advance of a possible listing on the Australian Stock Exchange (ASX) within 12 to 18 months.
The deal is understood to have been made with a consortium of industry figures who will take holdings in van Eyk totalling 20 per cent, thereby taking the group to a point where it is almost a third externally owned. Twelve per cent of the group has been externally owned for some time.
Of the remaining stakes in the research business, managing director Stephen van Eyk and directors Mark Thomas and Rob Prugue will own 63 per cent, with staff holding the remaining five per cent.
Van Eyk says the addition of extra shareholders came about by each of the existing shareholders selling down their stake by an equal percentage. However, he would not disclose how much that was or the size of the director’s holdings.
Despite intense speculation, van Eyk would not discuss who the new shareholders are, saying the deal was not yet at completion stage.
However, he did say that some of those involved came from the financial services industry, although their investments were on an individual basis and not made by any particular company.
“This deal met with the full agreement of those within van Eyk Research and there is no one, in the new owners, with enough of a holding to have a big stake alone,” van Eyk says.
As part of the ownership changes, an independent director may join the board prior to listing, but van Eyk says the director would not come from amongst the new stakeholders.
The deal is the second time this year that van Eyk Research’s ownership has been in the spotlight.
Earlier this year, Mercer indicated that it was in negotiations to buy van Eyk Research outright, however, more than two months after the deal was first announced, it was called off.
