board. Collectively, the three shareholder groups hold more than 20 percent of Cypress shares, which represents another pressure point on Cypress.
Arcadia Capital Advisors of Great Neck, NY, which owns less than a 5 percent stake in Cypress, asserted in its letter that by failing to investigate higher offers, the Cypress board “was not fulfilling its fiduciary duty to protect and enhance shareholder value.”
And the RA Capital Healthcare Fund, part of Boston-based RA Capital Management (founded by Richard Aldrich of Sirtris Pharmaceuticals and Altus Pharmaceuticals), followed a few days later with a lengthy and potent letter that underscored, point-by-point, how Cypress has misinterpreted both shareholder sentiment and the value of its recently acquired products.
In its statement today, Cypress says it plans to consult its financial and legal advisors and announce its response within 10 business days. Jefferies & Company and Perella Weinberg Partners are serving as financial advisors, and the Cooley law firm and Potter Anderson & Corroon are serving as its legal advisors.
Author: Bruce V. Bigelow
In Memoriam: Our dear friend Bruce V. Bigelow passed away on June 29, 2018. He was the editor of Xconomy San Diego from 2008 to 2018. Read more about his life and work here.
Bruce Bigelow joined Xconomy from the business desk of the San Diego Union-Tribune. He was a member of the team of reporters who were awarded the 2006 Pulitzer Prize in National Reporting for uncovering bribes paid to San Diego Republican Rep. Randy “Duke” Cunningham in exchange for special legislation earmarks. He also shared a 2006 award for enterprise reporting from the Society of Business Editors and Writers for “In Harm’s Way,” an article about the extraordinary casualty rate among employees working in Iraq for San Diego’s Titan Corp. He has written extensively about the 2002 corporate accounting scandal at software goliath Peregrine Systems. He also was a Gerald Loeb Award finalist and National Headline Award winner for “The Toymaker,” a 14-part chronicle of a San Diego start-up company. He takes special satisfaction, though, that the series was included in the library for nonfiction narrative journalism at the Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard University.
Bigelow graduated from U.C. Berkeley in 1977 with a degree in English Literature and from the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism in 1979. Before joining the Union-Tribune in 1990, he worked for the Associated Press in Los Angeles and The Kansas City Times.
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