New MANDA addition
In reviewing open M&A deals, I discovered that Life Sciences Research (LSR) was trading at a nice discount to its proposed purchase price of $8.50 in cash per share. I picked some up today for the MANDA portfolio for $8.00 per share. Assuming the deal is consummated (and there hasn’t been any indication that it won’t, at least so far), my transaction will yield a nice 6.25% profit. The company’s CEO announced on July 9th that he intended to take the company private. The deal is expected to close sometime in the fourth quarter and is subject to shareholder approval and certain closing conditions as set forth in the merger agreement.
Other MANDA non-news
As the old saying goes, “No news is good news” but sometimes no news isn’t good news as seems to be the case with Oracle’s (ORCL) bid for Sun Microsystems (JAVA). The merger finally cleared US anti-trust review and now sits under European inspection where regulators seem to not be in any sort of rush to clear it. Each day that passes is one more day the company loses market share to competitors.
And investors know it. Witness the steady decline in the price of JAVA stock. It closed today at $8.96, off 56 cents from its $9.50 take-over offer. I’m not too worried about the deal falling through–yet, but everyday it languishes in regulatory purgatory is one more strike against it. I’m setting a stop/loss around $8.50 which is roughly 7% below my purchase price of $9.10.
Here is the updated MANDA portfolio:
