Dow Jones report on sale of lock-up shares:
Several Wall Street analysts said that the 13% decline in Cree's stock
Wednesday may have been due to insider selling following the end of a share
lock-up period.
A company spokeswoman confirmed the lock-up period related to Cree's
acquisition of privately owned Nitres Inc. expired when Cree's fourth-quarter
earnings report was issued on July 27. Employees of Cree were permitted to trade
Cree stock on Tuesday, while non-employees were permitted to trade Friday, she
said.
Cree closed its acquisition of Nitres in May, receiving all of Nitres' stock
in exchange for 1.5 million Cree shares. Cree also issued about 350,000 unvested
shares in exchange for unvested shares of Nitres, and reserved about 150,000
shares for Nitres stock options and warrants assumed by Cree as part of the
transaction.
The spokeswoman said she had no knowledge of how many shares might have been
sold following the end of the lock-up period or whether such selling had hurt
Cree's stock price.
Both Prudential Securities Inc. analyst Hans Mosesmann and Stephens Inc.
associate analyst Holman Harvey cited selling at the end of the lock-up period
as the likely cause of the decline.
"There could be some (venture capital firms) who have been wanting their
payout for a long time," Banc of America Securities LLC analyst Gauna said. "It
could just be other sellers in the market."
Cree's shares closed at 108 Friday, down from their close Thursday of 112 1/2.
The stock recovered to end trading Monday at 112 7/16, but dropped to 104 3/16
on Tuesday and to 90 3/8 on Wednesday. It recently traded at 93 3/8.
-Riva Richmond, Dow Jones Newswires; 201-938-5670
ragingbull.altavista.com
Robert, 30,000 chips per 2" wafer? Seems to me that that would make them almost impossibly small to work with. |
