Laggard DDDD – 4D Pharma placing with no Primary Bid individual offer

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By Cliff Weight, ShareSoc Director. I hold shares in DDDD.

I am not sure if I am happy or angry with 4D Pharma. Duncan Peyton (Chief Executive Officer) and Alex Stevenson (Chief Scientific Officer) have each subscribed £725,000 for shares in the placing, which in total raised £20m at a price of 110p. Their commitment and increased skin in the game is excellent and praiseworthy.

The share price this morning is 118p. So those who invested at 110p have a modest gain of 7%.

However those individual investors who bought in Jan and Feb 2021 at much higher prices might feel aggrieved at not being given the chance to subscribe at 110p. I was one of those: I bought at 122p in January to increase my DDDD holding. If I now want to top up my diluted DDDD holding I will have to pay a premium to the placing price and even more irritating is those who sell their shares to me and realise their profits are probably those who participated in the the mates rates placing and are flipping their shares!

On balance, I think the placing was reasonably priced. The 7% “paper” profit so far is nice for those who participated, but arguably a requirement to get the extra £20m funding. Hopefully, next time there will be a Primary Bid style simultaneous offer to individual investors. Then I will have less reason for sour grapes.

It is however yet another example of the reason for pre-emption rights and why directors and advisers must not be cavalier with shareholders’ rights.

Those interested can read the relevant RNS here: https://www.investegate.co.uk/4d-pharma-plc–dddd-/rns/directors–subscription-for-new-ordinary-shares/202104160700066612V/

One comment
  1. Amit Vedhara says:

    As a #DDDD shareholder I too am incensed that no opportunity was given to honour pre emption rights

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