Acacia Research has sold off more of the bargain stocks it scooped from Link Fund Solutions as part of the wind down of the former Woodford Equity Income fund.
Acacia has faced criticism over the speed with which it has flipped a number of names from the bundle of 19 stocks it acquired for £224m at the beginning of June. Last week it was revealed it had sold out of Midatech and Theravance in their entirety and reduced stakes in a number of other stocks.
Now regulatory filings from this week show the US company has sold off a further two companies in their entirety and halved its stake in another. All three were UK science companies, the industry that Neil Woodford (pictured) sought to champion via his eponymous fund house.
See also: Investors slammed Woodford for treating them like charity
A regulatory filing published early Thursday morning shows the hedge fund-backed company sold a 8.99% stake in 4D Pharma in its entirety. The transaction took place the previous day. It had already made £548,000 last week from cutting its stake in 4D Pharma from 11.96% to 10.81%.
The £52m pharmaceutical company opened at 50.80p this morning and trades far from its peak – in both 2015 and 2016 it reached over 1,000p.
The Woodford Equity Income fund initiated a position via share placings in June 2014 and January 2015. It built up a further position in the months that followed, purchasing 2.7m shares at an average price of 325p, according to a blog post from its then head of trading Grant Wentzel.
At the time, Woodford held 8.7m shares in 4D Pharma, but the stake Acacia sold on represented 109.5m shares.
See also: Acacia Research shrugs off ‘silly’ criticism after swiftly flipping Woodford assets
Another regulatory filing reveals Mereo Biopharma was also sold off by Acacia over the last week. The 8.9% stake in the £100.4m pharmaceutical business, which specialises in rare diseases, was sold on 19 June.
The Woodford Equity Income fund initiated a position in Mereo Biopharma in July 2015 when it was unquoted.
A stake in a third stock, Netscientific, was also reduced from 19.9% to 10.35%.
In November 2017, a Woodford Patient Capital Trust update said the stock was trading “well below the level at which the trust first invested”. It ended the month at 65p, while its current share price is 5.97p.
