Protherics Share Discussion Threads

[superbarnet] 22/9/2008 13:47

It would appear they got it with sentiment at its lowest along with the price. Once the deal is finalised btg looks a good bet. When will the deal be finalised if the relevant shareholder agreement is obtained?

[gazza] 22/9/2008 11:26

I guess the question for long term holders who have waited for many years is whether to invest in the new Pro-BTG company or whatever they are going to be called. Been through it before with Proteus and Therapeutic.
Gazza.

[johnac] 22/9/2008 09:12

And your point is ?

[adejuk] 21/9/2008 11:55

bgc was 245 only a few weeks ago. i have held for seven years and this is a great deal for everybody but imho partic for pti holders. share price will be at least £4 by end 09. dyr on the bgc bb - wb2 and cortez particularly worth looking at despite the constant squabbling - at least it's about value and not personal.

[baronet 1] 21/9/2008 11:36

fhmktg ---

I have seen nothing in the press and I personally think it is a done deal, unless AZ come up with something like, a cash offer of 75p per share, which I would view, still as cheap. I will keep my holding and see what unfolds and BTG have been very fortunate that this was coming to a conclusion when the worlds markets were in turmoil and to some degree still are.

JB

[fhmktg] 21/9/2008 10:13

Any press mentions over the weekend?
Is this a done deal?

[mre] 19/9/2008 16:46

Czar, 255p would raise the effective PTI offer to 74p which would be far better than where we're at now. However this would mean a 54% rise in BTG's share price from today and a 24% rise from BTG's share price used as the basis of the offer. Such rises don't appear realistic to me in such a short time span as when the deal is closed (estimated at early December). Despite my pessimism, I do obviously hope you're right!

[czar] 19/9/2008 15:59

PTI directors and large shareholders wanted BTG paper, that means they see 2+2=5 or much more. I will give the enlarged group a year to see what they can do, the recent research looks very sound and points to a move to 255p when the deal is closed.

[greenpastures] 19/9/2008 15:48

Yes mre, I bought my first tranch as a punt on the angiotensin drug but it was Cytofab that led me to buy what was for me a big holding.

May be something will come of angiotensin although by the time I was adding to my original stake I had almost discounted it to zero. When I looked into things a bit more I realised there are problems such as what happens if you need to raise the blood pressure of a person who has had a 6 month vaccination.

Anyway time to research BTG I think. We might not have made much money on PTI yet but I think the directors have done a pretty good job getting to where we are so my feeling is that it is probably wise to trust them on this, although I realise a heap of 2p share options might cloud a person's judgement.

[mre] 19/9/2008 15:23

Greenpastures, Protherics' main blockbuster was supposed to be the angiotensin vaccine. It's a long shot I know, but if their current trials are successful then that would really make the BTG share price rocket. Problem is that's simply the same old "jam tomorrow".

[greenpastures] 19/9/2008 15:07

I don't know much about BTG at the moment but it seems the Protheric's directors figure combining will give them more clout when marketting products. It also lessens risks to some extent. If cytofab gets abandoned by Astrazenneca when the phase 11 results are in we would have been looking at a very low share price. This way there is a bit more to fall back on.

Glad I did reduce my holding a few weeks ago though as I had too much exposure to Protherics for the size of my portfolio and the risks in the stock. I had been a bit too misty eyed, dreaming about the dividends that were going to be paid if Cytofab hits the markets.

Along the way there has been a lot of share dilution since 2003 for what seems to me now little real gain- Voraxaze, Prolarix and the Enclampsia drug.

May be Prolarix will one day make the dilution worth it but I am not counting on it.

[hot_topic] 19/9/2008 14:06

Don't know how accurate these charts are but if you go to the iii site and load the pti chart and compare it with the btg then re-based over 5 years pti has out-performed btg by a margin. Would be interested in any chartists views on this. HT.

[johnac] 19/9/2008 13:22

Only human I suppose, but sad just the same.
They don't believe in themselves. This isn't just my opinion. It's a stone cold fact. Evident by the fact they are content to settle for such a mediocre deal.

[luckygit] 19/9/2008 09:46

Looking at the above posts reinforces my thoughts that the PI's holding PTI have been well and truly shafted over the last few years. It makes my blood boil seeing company directors walk away with big wadges of cash in their back pockets while long term investors walk away with the crumbs. Its the shareholders who take the risk. For me I break even - just.
Thats my rant over. Time to move on. Good luck to all.
LG

[greekman] 19/9/2008 09:33

Makes you think the Directors of PTI have abandoned the go it alone model for the long/medium term in order to take the short term profit.

[fhmktg] 19/9/2008 09:32

Like me!
I despair of investing in British technology based companies!

[johnac] 19/9/2008 08:59

If the directors of PTI recommend this takeover, then it is quite clear they do not have much faith in their future as a stand alone company.

It's so sad really for the people who really believed !

[greekman] 19/9/2008 08:08

Just a thought.
Protherics sell to BTG. AstraZeneca sit on the sidelines watching value of each to drop, then step in to takeover the bigger BTG once all the fire has died down.
OK unlikely but as many including myself have said, can't understand why Astra who are liable to pay licensing payments to PTI and could snap both Protherics and BTG up with their petty cash don't appear interested.
Surely they can't think PTI was not worth 60p plus.
Would like to have seen the list of the potential buyers of PTI and the amounts offered, jut to see if Astra had been sniffing around.
Like I said, just a thought.

[bargainbob] 19/9/2008 07:51

Vote No to this Merger.

[ccnp] 19/9/2008 07:40

seems to me this was a good company which wanted to grow organically which is why I invested a long time ago. I too will take a loss an overall loss. I wonder is Darling will limit CGT loss offsets soon.

The trouble is that this kind of firm is no longer good enough for the greedy scum who make up todays "investors". Their greed has already put us on the road to very real fianncial problems in a few years time as we pay back the Brown PPP funds and the Darling bail outs.

One thing is clear for kids. Get out of the rotting dump of a country or copy the Brown/Blair philosophy; Lie, Lie and Lie again in pursuit of your personal short and medium term ambitions.

[3ros] 19/9/2008 07:07

This has been a bit of a dog of a share for me. Purchased in 2003 @ 33p with a market cap of 28 Million. Mr Heath ambitions were to grow it into a FTSE 250 company. We now are capped at 160 Million (grown from 28 million to 160 million) through SHARE PLACINGS and will shortly be a FTSE 250 company. MR HEATH your ambitions had been fulfilled. Resign (look at ADVFN worst performing shares over the last 5 years - PTI are there)

[cortez] 18/9/2008 23:03

DevBod/donk4

BTG fell 14.9% today and PTI rose 13.9%.

At 170p BTG is capped at £256.7m (151x170p). At 46p PTI is capped at £157.4m (342.2mx46p). A combined cap would be £414m.

If there's to be 257m shares in issue, share price 161p. You tell me, I think the juries still out.

[baronet 1] 18/9/2008 23:02

The Times

September 19, 2008

Protherics slithers into the grasp of BTG as new wave of biotech consolidation gathers strength

Lilly Peel

BTG has agreed to buy Protherics for about £218 million in a deal that will create one of Britain's biggest biotech companies.

The tie-up will create a group worth about £400 and bring about £20 million in annualised savings within three years. The deal should propel the new company into the FTSE 250.

The deal is only the latest in a wave of consolidation that has taken hold in the beleagured sector that has been spurred by small, cash-hungry companies seeking alliances to stretch cash reserves.

Larger pharmaceutical companies seeking new products to pad out their depleted drug development pipelines have also found that small biotech groups are so cheap that it is sometimes better value to snap them up than to pay upfront in a licensing deal.


The deal did not meet with universal approval. A number of analysts said the merger was merely a sign of troubled times in British biotech, as investors lose their appetite for risk and stock plummets.

Paul Cuddon, analyst at KBC Peel Hunt, said: "If it was a more buoyant market maybe there would be more money available for Protherics to develop their own strategy." He added that investors had hoped for a cash buyout by a giant such as AstraZeneca when Protherics said last month that it had received several approaches. Mr Cuddon said: "A merged company creates less risk, but also less focus."

Protherics, which has a handful of products on the market including a treatment for rattlesnake bite, has been burning through money as it develops other products. BTG will gain a steady, if small, trickle of royalties from Protherics's products, while Protherics gains access to more cash to help develop its pipeline, diversifying risk for both sides.

Neil Mackinson, head of European healthcare investment banking at Piper Jaffray, which was joint financial adviser to BTG, said: "BTG wants to become a sustainable business and the way to do that is to have marketable products." He said some drugs in development were likely to be put on hold or shelved, bringing R&D savings.

Protherics shareholders will receive 0.291 new BTG shares for every one Protherics share held. That values Protherics at 60p a share – a premium of 45.5 per cent to the closing price on September 17 – based on a BTG share price of 206p.

Protherics shares rose 5¾p, or 13.9 per cent, to close at 47p, while BTG stock, which has risen 115 per cent in the past year, fell 30p, or 14.9 per cent, closing at 171p.


JB