Hi Uncle and Steve, and other members watching or holding SHP...
We're going to have eye-strain watching SHP, not that it didn't pay in the past...but as we want to make more out of this baby, we'd better put the reasons behind the current fall clearly, so we know what we're watching about...because it has come to a point that a short term view is even more risky now unless it's an intra hour trade...it may go up or down by 100 any day from now on..
I threfore decided to take a close look at this arbitrage issue...here is some details that I've come up with:
1) Heavy short selling by merger and acquisition arbitrage funds is the reason behind the depressed price of late...
2) They aim to profit by converting BioChem stock into SHP's at the lower end of the deal's tiered conversion structure, which is based on a 15-day price average...
3) These arbitrageurs have been short-selling on assumption that the deal will close - and the 15-day average be settled - around the March 31 deadline...
4) Ministry of Industry Canada, the regulatory body is reviewing the deal. The initial review ended March 1, triggering an additional 30-day period through March 31...
5) There's no guarantee that regulators will approve the deal by March 31. If they don't, the review rolls over into an open-ended period which has no set expiration date for arbitrageurs to rely on...in other words the deal can be approved any day...
6) These arbitrage funds have opened short positions SHP and long on BioChem to keep SHP share price depressed enough to reap the better conversion rate under terms of the stock-swap...
7) This is why volume has been massive for the last 4 trade days; 18 million Tuesday, 11.7 million Wednesday, 15.5 million Thursday and 9 million Friday...compare these figures with 800,000-a-day average volume and you'll see how aggressive the game is played and how big the money is used...
8) What are they trying to achieve?
Under the merger terms, if SHP ADSs trade between $47.20 and $70.80 at the date of completion, BioChem shareholders get $37 worth of SHP ADSs per Biochem share. Trading above $70.80 gives BioChem holders 0.5226 Shire ADSs, but anything below $47.20 gives BioChem holders a much better conversion rate of 0.7839. SHP ADSs closed friday at $40.50...
So they've been successful so far in spite of the rise on Friday...
But they have one serious problem...
The stock swap is based on SHP's share price on a 15-day average, ending on the third trading day prior to the deal's close. Mindful of this, arbitrageurs started shorting Shire shares around March 6...
What if the deal doesn't close by March 31?
There's probably going to be a lot of shorts moving to cover their positions...
Over all next week is decisive, if they get a signal that the deal will be closed by 31st march, they will keep depressing the price for a few more days...If not they'll rush to cover their short positions and we'll be watching SHP flying...
That's the trick...we either watch SHP close enough to make use of the trick or wait till the deal is closed to get in, or watch and trade it intra hour if we're equipped enough for that...
Good luck...Whatever it is for you...
Riz
(Info from DOW JONES NEWSWIRES)