Executive search firm Heidrick & Struggles (www.heidrick.com) announced on September 17 that it has sold 1.2 million shares of Google, which Heidrick & Struggles bought for 30 cents a share less than a month ago, splitting profits of $128.8 million from the sale. The firm received the right to buy the shares at that 30-cent price as part of a recruiting job it did for Google in 2001. It sold the shares this week for an average price of $108.22.
Heidrick & Struggles said that 55 percent of the net proceeds of the sale is payable to its consultants involved with the search. Current Heidrick & Struggles CEO Thomas Friel, one of the consultants who worked on that 2001 search, will receive 25 percent of the consultant team's share, though he's chosen to defer receipt of his share of the net proceeds under an existing deferred compensation plan.
