BioCentury
ARTICLE | Finance

Janus denies any special insight

April 3, 2000 7:00 AM UTC

Incyte (INCY) was whipsawed on Wednesday when Janus Capital filed a registration statement covering the resale of 2 million shares. The stock slid $20.813 (20 percent) to $82.50 on 3 million shares on the day as market watchers extrapolated that Janus, which bought the shares in a February private placement at $211 per share, had turned sour on the seller of genetic databases and related tools. Not the case, according to Janus portfolio manager Tom Malley. Malley told Ebb & Flow that the filing "has to do with getting shares registered to remove the discount we book to account for the liquidity risk," when Janus buys shares privately that aren't immediately tradable. "We're happy with the Incyte investment, and we like the long-term story." The 2 million shares represents a 6.3 percent stake in INCY, which closed Friday at $87.438, down $19.937 (19 percent) on the week.

In a week when the BioCentury 100 index suffered its forth consecutive blow-off, Lynx (LYNX) threw in the towel on its 1.5 million share follow-on. The move was no surprise, as the genomics company had the misfortune of filing for the deal during the week that President Clinton and Prime Minister Tony Blair issued a statement that raw genomic data should be freely available, driving investors from genomics stocks. LYNX shed $19.75 to $46.25 on the day of filing, and had traded down to $27.938 prior to pulling the deal on Thursday. ...