Times are tough, but activist investors are still finding some diamonds among the rough.
Well-known value investor Moab Partners accumulated an additional 1.5 million shares of Biodel (BIOD) since late October 2008. This additional accumulation comes on top of Moab’s previous stake of 500,000 shares or so, which it started accumulating in early September.
Moab, which focuses on deep-value plays, announced that the reason it has been aggressively purchasing shares of Biodel is that “as of November 28th, the market cap was only 71% of its cash and marketable securities balances reported in their 10Q for the period ended June 30th.”
Biodel is a specialty pharmaceutical company that makes therapeutics to address various unmet market needs. It has four drugs in it propriety pipeline: VIAject, an injected insulin currently in phase III testing; VIAtab, an oral sublingual insulin in phase II testing; and VIAmass and VIAcall, both of which are still in preclinical testing. The company claims that the four drugs in its pipeline, if approved, have the potential to total more than $1 billion in sales.
Biodel has a key catalyst, or, as the company calls it, “key value driver,” in the first half of 2009, when its Onsolis is up for FDA approval.
Currently, Moab owns 1.7 million shares of Biodel, which equates to about 7.3% of total shares outstanding.
In other activist news, TRT Capital Holdings delivered a letter to Gaylord Entertainment (GET) demanding to review Gaylord’s list of shareholders for the purpose of communicating with them regarding replacing four current board members at the 2009 annual shareholder meeting.
Gaylord operates two business segments: Gaylord Hotels, which had 2008 revenue of $670 million, with cash flow of $183 million; and Grand Ole Opry, which had 2008 revenue of $27 million, with cash flow of $8 million. Grand Ole Opry falls under Gaylord’s entertainment segment and is the nation’s longest-running live radio show, catering to the nation’s 60 million “country lifestyle” consumers.
Currently, TRT Capital Holdings owns 6,131,930 million shares of Gaylord Entertainment, which equates to roughly 14.9% total shares outstanding.
Deerfield Capital Management has increased its purchase offer to 80 cents per share for NitroMed (NTMD). NitroMed terminated its previously announced purchase and sale agreement with JHP Pharmaceuticals and its previously announced merger agreement with Archemix in accordance with the terms of those agreements. The deal is expected to close on Feb. 26. There is currently a 6-cent arbitrage, with NitroMed shares selling for $0.74 cents
On Jan. 22, Sellers Capital announced that an independent inspector of elections has confirmed that four of Sellers Capital’s nominees were elected to the Premier Exhibitions (PRXI) board of directors.
Premier Exhibitions is the creator of the Bodies and Titanic exhibits. It has $12 million in cash and no debt, and it owns more than $100 million worth of artifacts from the sunken Titanic.
Posted on Jan. 27, 2009
