What's Blackrock's involvement?Well, if my memory serves me well they control more than a dozen funds each invested in OXB. While it may be illegal to control the stock price through a single fund, there could be some funds buying and some funds selling, naturally ' for their own individual targets' (having the overall effect of holding the price down that we see) No knowledge. Just my ramblings. |
Jez,
If I was 100% sure then I would sell everything else and pile into OXB, so I have no problem with a different view. I obviously have less doubts than you though. As I have said before I'd really quite like us all to be here one year from now looking at the rewards of owning a c£250m revenue company which earns a better than 20% EBITDA margin.
Sean,
Blackrock buy in after the Novo Holdings chief says publicly that he intended to use the windfall weight loss drug profits to buy up carefully selected speciality service companies to the biotech / pharma sector.
Blackrock would be very unlikely to be following OXB. I'm pretty certain that they would be following the boss of a 150bn investment fund. It would be very easy for them to see what Novo Holdings owned in their growth portfolio and take a view on which of those Novo might be about to take further. Remember that Novo H had already bid for world's no3 CDMO when Blackrock crossed that threshold. Maybe they also thought that a speciality C> CDMO might bolt very nicely into the remains of Catalent at Novo Holdings.
Isn't that what hedge funds do - look at situations like this and place a bet? |
Can somebody explain to me the significance of Blackrock being shareholders please. |
H, i think your Novo theory is tenuous at best. As i have previously stated, once BlackRock became stockholders, this stagnation period was inevitable. It was very surprising to me as to the lack of debate when BR initially invested. Believe me from experience, their investment is very significant. For good or ill, i am not sure yet. |
Phil,
If I'm anything close with the theory-guess about Novo Holdings, then my further guess would be that they probably don't have the ready cash to do it (not cash equivalents - which they have mountains of) until Novo Nordisk completes the transfer of the cash in exchange for Catalent's 3 huge fill/finish sites. Stripping something that big out of one business sounds a logistical / regulatory nightmare to me - but the plants are really important to NN and they have had 11 months to plan it, so they should be ready. How long will it take? No idea.
Back onto things we are "sure" about, and I know you watch the FT OXB page and so will already have seen that of the 8 covering brokers for OXB, the lowest revenue forecast for 2025 is now £151m (highest £179m) and also know that OXB's previous all time high year (fed by 24/7 pandemic vaccine bashing) was £142.8m in 2021.
So on ordinary work with no exceptional windfalls, even the most pessimistic covering broker for OXB has them beating their record pandemic year revenue by the best part of £10m (highest forecast beats it by the the best part of £40m) and yet OXB maintain their vow of silence.
I know people have mentioned audited figures, but that only really matters for the official preliminary results which they can't release without the auditor's sign off. For a trading statement / business update, Frank can release what he wants when he wants and Lucy would have known in December the year to end November figures to the penny and also what was due in / out in December.
So they could have put something out towards the end of December with the words "are due to close as per forecast" or, at the beginning of the year they could have said "pleased to confirm that we closed the year as guided" (or similar) but they didn't.
Badger, Luminaire, AnDy and the others could easily explain this as OXB going bust, but we know from the interims what the first 6 months were and what OXB had in further binding work at that point.
So, it's all going rather well but for some reason OXB are reluctant to blow that trumpet. My best explanation remains that OXB are expecting a very friendly approach from their biggest shareholder (who has just bought the world's no 3 CDMO) and don't want to rock the boat.
I'm open to other explanations of why a CEO who had good reason to talk up the prospects of his company and share price wouldn't, because I can't think of a good one. |
Well, we can expect an RNS tomorrow then Gareth! |
I was thinking about mowing the lawn this weekend. |
They are still there if not a little quiet! ;) |
I think its a disenchantment with UK equities albeit,in the absence of an update OXB is liable to drift.European stockmarkets look a poor choice for 2025 compared to both US equities and Asian markets.That said,US equities can’t push on indefinitely.Come the second half the year,i’m concerned that US markets could correct creating a significant negative impact upon equities worldwide.
We know that UK institutions have orientated away from UK equities over the last two decades and despite Government waffle,i don’t see that trend being meaningful reversed.So,its down to private punters and overseas investors but weak sterling won’t encourage the latter.It will,however,potentially encourage overseas industry competitors to use their dollars to purchase sterling assets. |
Is this just the macro backdrop causing this drop, or are investors getting the jitters with the (relatively) silent running? |
Time for more cash under the bed or into gold? Four more year of Starmer to find it. |
Interesting Harry.I see what you're saying.There's nothing to stop Novo Holdings being rather avuncular if not benign when it comes to its dealing with favoured investments.Meanwhile UK equities languish.Reeves budget has exacerbated a tricky economic scenario.The slide in sterling is making UK companies cheaper by the day as far as overseas predators are concerned. |
And not a whisper to shareholders! So it looks like a takeover is on the cards but at what price? Time for a New Year's quiz Harry? |
Peter Nolan CEO of BFB said "We are delighted to take assignment of this patent portfolio which we look forward to developing as part of our BFB-201 program." |
Peter Nolan !!!!
A great guy btw. Lovely man. |
Peter Nolan is CEO there, so that explains how that happened. |
Let me second Phil there Taffy. Excellent find and maybe a RNS tomorrow for us?
Whatever they got - even if it's only future royalties upon success and nothing else, it's still better than what we had. |
Wow good find taffy; interesting Peter Nolan is on that team. No values so I guess a nominal amount |
BlackfinBio Limited acquired Parkinson's IP patent portfolio from Oxford Biomedica plc. January 07, 2025 Share BlackfinBio Limited acquired Parkinson's IP patent portfolio from Oxford Biomedica plc (LSE:OXB) on January 8, 2025. BlackfinBio Limited completed the acquisition of Parkinson's IP patent portfolio from Oxford Biomedica plc (LSE:OXB) on January 8, 2025. |
GSK in talks to buy biotech company IDRx according to Bloomberg. |
Novo has a commitment to its shareholders to acquire companies at a fair price and not overpay.As for institutional investors,the cost price of their shareholdings isn't the be all and end all.It's all about relative performance,opportunity cost.If they have a portfolio that beats the appropriate indices and they get into the upper quartile they'll be perky enough even if the value of their portfolio falls.As for industry players who invest in their peers,they'll be cognisant of their purchase price but times change and,with the benefit of hindsight,it might become apparent that their previous share purchases were ill timed and that the stockmarket perception has altered. |
(Edit - obviously superseded by Sean's reply above).
Phil,
I think they could still say "thanks for your interest / support and we are working on the next update which will be published in due course" which provides a response without saying anything.
Maybe Sophia is on holiday. Maybe she is very busy. Maybe it's something else. |
Dear xxxx Thank you for your email. I'm sorry you didn't receive a response sooner, strangely enough I never received your first two emails I will check with our IT team on that, thank you for flagging. Yes, we still intend to put out an update, as committed to previously. Last year's updates were in March and August, but this was the first year doing them so we hadn't committed to a set schedule yet. From this year, you should expect a more predictable schedule. I hope that helps. Kind regards, Sophia Sophia BolhassanHead of Investor Relations |