Reset of the record date is probable reason for halt; this news should give us a run back up to 71, although it raises interesting implications for those folks who flipped SFE shares around the previous record date.
Thursday June 24, 11:17 AM Eastern time
Company Press Release
SOURCE:Safeguard Scientifics, Inc.
Safeguard Scientifics Resets Record
Dates for Directed Share
Subscription Program for Internet
Capital Group and US Interactive
IPOs
WAYNE, Pa., June 24 /PRNewswire/ -- Safeguard
Scientifics, Inc. (NYSE: SFE), the New York Stock
Exchange-listed information technology holding company,
announced today that it has reset the record dates for
participation in its Directed Share Subscription Program
(DSSP) for the initial public offerings of common stock of US
Interactive and Internet Capital Group.
The new record date for participation in the DSSP for each of
Internet Capital Group and US Interactive is Thursday, June
24, 1999. All other terms of the DSSP for these offerings as
previously announced remain the same. Subscription offers for
these companies are currently expected to be distributed in
July 1999 to shareholders as of the record date.
This action was necessitated by a determination by the NASD
that the DSSP is subject to its "Free Riding" rule, which
prohibits the sale of shares in certain IPOs to persons affiliated
with brokers and other restricted persons. Without an
exemption from this rule, the underwriters in the offerings
would have been required to assure that no Safeguard
shareholders who are restricted persons under the rule would
be permitted to purchase shares in the DSSP. Due to the time
constraints of the DSSP offerings, and because most of
Safeguard's shares are held in street name, this requirement
would have been impossible to comply with, and Safeguard
would have been forced to cancel the DSSP altogether. The
NASD has agreed to grant an exemption from its Free Riding
rule for the DSSP for these offerings provided that Safeguard
resets the record dates without advance notice. As a result of
the exemption granted by the NASD, all holders of at least
100 shares of Safeguard on the record date, including
restricted persons under the NASD rule, will be permitted to
participate in the DSSP.
"We are pleased that we were able to resolve this issue with
the NASD in a way that permits the DSSP to go forward,"
said Jim Ounsworth, Safeguard's senior vice president and
general counsel. "We regret the confusion this causes for our
shareholders. We realize that the position of some
shareholders may have changed since the original record dates,
but the only alternative to resetting the record dates was to
cancel the DSSP offering for these companies." |
