The latest Investing Matters Podcast episode featuring Jeremy Skillington, CEO of Poolbeg Pharma has just been released. Listen here.
Small correction: "$500k" should be "$500m" obviously.
Last day of Arix trading, and the SP mismatch still persists. I've tried hard to come up with ideas why this might be so, and here's a few theories:
1. The market cap is too small for institutional investors to get involved. They often impose a minimum limit on themselves. (As an aside, the merged company will have a mcap above $500k, which might bring it onto the radar for some IIs. Hopefully the liquidity might improve too.)
2. Cautious retail investors (e.g. the sort that invest in funds rather than individual companies) think there's no such thing as a free lunch, if it looks too good to be true...
3. Less cautious retail investors aren't interested in making a few percent profit, however nailed on it looks. They're far to busy trying to multibag with HE1 and the likes.
4. Fear of a post-merger sell-off by ex-Arix holders. If this happens, it might be better to hold back cash to take advantage.
5. $/£ exchange rate risk, or just not wanting to hold $-denominated shares.
6. Some retail platforms may not support RTW shares. HL does. Fidelity will give partial support - it will let people hold the acquired RTW shares and sell them in due course, but not buy new ones. Those are the only two I know about.
7. Worry that the second vote won't achieve the required 75%. This seems unlikely given the 92.22% in the first vote. (It's amusing that in theory RTW could get cold feet and use their 25.5% to scupper the deal themselves! But they've RNS'd undertakings to vote in favour.)
I'm not really convinced by any of these, can someone else do better?! GLA
Hi 1ups1de,
Just wondering, are you invested here? Some of us Arix holders are mystified why RTW holders aren't selling their shares then buying back via Arix, ending up with extra shares for free. It just seems like an obvious arbitrage.
Please note, I'm not advising anything, not qualified to, and may have completely misunderstood the situation. I'm just trying to make sense of what's happening, so any thoughts appreciated!
Hi Dret, with respect I think you might have misunderstood. This isn't like a rights issue, where the SP adjusts on the ex-rights date. On completion, yes, there will be more RTW shares in existence, but the market cap should have grown by (roughly) the same factor, due to the addition of the Arix assets. If this wasn't the case then RTW shareholders could just sell their shares now and buy them back cheaper after completion.
Having said that, it's still a mystery why RTW holders aren't doing something very similar - selling and buying back cheaper via Arix shares!
There might be a sell-off in RTW following completion, as some Arix holders may not want to be RTW holders, but you'd think that would be anticipated and reflected in today's RTW SP. (Some might regard such a sell-off as a good buying opportunity.)
Anyway, just a week now till we see how it all pans out. GLA
Today RTW(Bid) $1.385 x 1.4633 x 79.75p/$ = 161.6p ARIX
- still 13% above 143.1p (dummy sell of 10k shares), and I still can't understand why this apparent arbitrage remains!
10400/11000
https://numerco.com/NSet
Thanks to yupawiese2010 on advfn for spotting this.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BnSNSS5zktY
Hi Oldnbald, did you miss yesterday's RNS?
The second vote, on 12th Feb, will require "at least 75 per cent. of the votes cast in respect of it", but after yesterday's 92.22% that isn't looking like a problem.
Today RTW(Bid) $1.37 x 1.4633 x 78.9p/$ = 158.2p ARIX
Clearly going ahead then.