Saniona increases shareholder base with more than 50%
Saniona, a leading biotech company in the field of ion channels, today announces that the number of shareholders has increased with more than 50% since the issue of the interim report for the first nine months of 2015. The company has gained significant interest from Danish investors who increased by more than tenfold. The liquidity of the company’s share more than doubled in November following the rights issue.
“Saniona was the first Danish company to list on AktieTorget, a microcap exchange that is unknown to many Danish investors. The significant increase in the number of Danish shareholders is not only interesting for Danish companies but also for Swedish companies listed on AktieTorget and Nasdaq First North Stockholm since Saniona’s new Danish shareholders will become familiar with these market places,” says Thomas Feldthus, CFO of Saniona.
Saniona is now planning to list the company on Nasdaq Stockholm Smallcap in 2016 in order to enable institutional investors to invest in Saniona.
“The increase in the number of shareholders and in the liquidity of the company’s share is important for achieving interest from institutional investors. The current development is highly encouraging and supports these plans.”
In October 2015, Saniona raised about SEK 48.8 million before finance costs through a rights issue comprising 3,488,717 shares at SEK 14 per share. The company gained significant interest from new investors after the rights issue. According to Euroclear, the number of shareholders increased with more than 50% from 2,094 on September 30 to 3,154 on November 30, 2015. The increase in the number of shareholders was highest in Denmark with 786 new shareholders equal to an increase of 10.6 times followed by Sweden with 260 new shareholders equal to an increase of 13% (all numbers exclude holdings in life insurance and non-Swedish custody account holders).
The distribution in ownership was almost unchanged during the period. On November 30, 2015, the Danish shareholders owned 49.5% (a reduction of 0.3%), Swedish shareholders 40.7% (an increase of 1.6%) and shareholders in the rest of world 9.8% (a reduction of 1.3%).
The liquidity in the company’s share has increased significantly following the closing of the rights issue. In November, the average daily volume was around 272 000 shares equal to a daily trading value of SEK 4.8 million. This was more than the double of the average trading volume and value for the first 11 months of 2015, which was 104 000 shares and average daily trading value of SEK 1.9 million.
The Danish analyst house, Praetorian Research, is planning to initiate coverage of Saniona in response to the increased interest in Denmark. The analyses will be published on www.p-research.dk when available. Saniona is already covered by three Swedish analysts including Biostock, Redeye and Smallcap, which can be found on www.biostock.se, www.redeye.se and www.smallcap.se respectively.
Further statistics about the shareholder distribution is set out in the tables below.
For more information, please contact
Thomas Feldthus, EVP and CFO, Saniona, Mobile: +45 2210 9957, E-mail: tf@saniona.com
About Saniona
Saniona is a research and development company focused on drugs for diseases of the central nervous system, autoimmune diseases, metabolic diseases and treatment of pain. The company has a significant portfolio of potential drug candidates at pre-clinical and clinical stage. The research is focused on ion channels, which makes up a unique protein class that enables and controls the passage of charged ions across cell membranes. Saniona has an ongoing collaboration agreement with Saniona’s Boston based spinout Ataxion Inc., which is financed by Atlas Venture Inc. and Biogen Idec Inc. Saniona is based in Copenhagen, Denmark, where it has a research center of high international standard and 18 employees. Saniona is listed at AktieTorget since April 2014 and has about 3,000 shareholders. The company’s share is traded under the ticker SANION. Read more at www.saniona.com.
Shareholder distribution by region as of September 30, 2015 and November 30, 2015 (see tabel in enclosed pdf)
Ownership distribution by region as of September 30, 2015 and November 30, 2015 (see tabel in enclosed pdf)
Shareholder and ownership distribution by size as of September 30, 2015 and November 30, 2015 (see tabel in enclosed pdf)