ANITA Roddick and husband Gordon sold 3.5m of their shares in the Body Shop yesterday to finance a cold relief product and a television film on threatened tribes.
The shares, sold for 240p each, will give the Roddicks £8.4m, but only about £4.1m is to go on
the two ventures.
The couple, who still run the cosmetics group they founded, are left with over 24m shares each-a combined holding of 25.4pc of Body Shop International. The first project is the manufacture by the Healthcare Foundation of an inhaler designed to alleviate hay-fever and cold symptoms. The foundation, a health education charity set up in 1987 by Anita Roddick, Richard Branson and Michael Grade, also developed Mates condoms. The Roddicks have paid a total of £2.1m towards developing the inhaler, which is now on the market. In 1989, the Roddicks also guaranteed funding of about £2m for the second project, a television series by the Body Shop's subsidiary, Body Shop Film Company. The 10-part film, "Millenium: Tribal Wisdom and the Modern World" was broadcast in the United States and Canada two years ago, and shown in this country in 1993.
"Millenium interested us because of its concern with human rights and its attempt to draw attention to the plight of indigenous peoples," a Body Shop spokeswoman said yesterday. "It continues to be marketed around the world," she added.
Between them, the two projects will take up just under half of the sum raised by the share sale. Body Shop said that the £4.3m balance would go towards similar new projects.
