Biogen Idec shares (NASDAQ: BIIB) hit a one-year high yesterday after billionaire investor and occasional corporate raider Carl Icahn was cleared by U.S. antitrust authorities to buy shares in the corporation.
The stock closed Friday at $62.89, up $2.92 (nearly 5 percent) for the day. The news came barely a week after Icahn revealed he had already purchased nearly one percent of Biogen shares. Marketwatch has a good summary of the regulatory news and some background about Icahn.
Icahn likes to call himself an “activist investor.” The big question, of course, is how active is he planning to be with Biogen. In the past, he has purchased stakes in companies he believes are undervalued and then pushed management to take actions designed to increase the firm’s value. Such actions have included a sale of the company.
According to the MarketWatch report, the antitrust clearance, posted Friday by the Federal Trade Commission, “did not specify the type or size of the transaction that Icahn’s group is interested in pursuing.” As of Friday afternoon, it noted, “Icahn’s various corporate entities had made no new filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission in regard to Biogen stock.”
Whatever Icahn’s intentions with Biogen, forcing a sale of the company against management intentions will likely be more difficult than it would have only a few months ago. In late June, Biogen completed a big stock buyback program that saw it shell out some $3 billion to buy back more than 56 million of its own shares.
Author: Robert Buderi
Bob is Xconomy's founder and chairman. He is one of the country's foremost journalists covering business and technology. As a noted author and magazine editor, he is a sought-after commentator on innovation and global competitiveness. Before taking his most recent position as a research fellow in MIT's Center for International Studies, Bob served as Editor in Chief of MIT's Technology Review, then a 10-times-a-year publication with a circulation of 315,000. Bob led the magazine to numerous editorial and design awards and oversaw its expansion into three foreign editions, electronic newsletters, and highly successful conferences. As BusinessWeek's technology editor, he shared in the 1992 National Magazine Award for The Quality Imperative.
Bob is the author of four books about technology and innovation. Naval Innovation for the 21st Century (2013) is a post-Cold War account of the Office of Naval Research. Guanxi (2006) focuses on Microsoft's Beijing research lab as a metaphor for global competitiveness. Engines of Tomorrow (2000) describes the evolution of corporate research. The Invention That Changed the World (1996) covered a secret lab at MIT during WWII. Bob served on the Council on Competitiveness-sponsored National Innovation Initiative and is an advisor to the Draper Prize Nominating Committee. He has been a regular guest of CNBC's Strategy Session and has spoken about innovation at many venues, including the Business Council, Amazon, eBay, Google, IBM, and Microsoft.
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