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Biotech / Medical : VVUS: VIVUS INC. (NASDAQ) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Mkilloran who wrote (18370)	1/29/1999 7:58:00 PM
From: VLAD	Respond to of 23519

martin, You make an excellent point. If the domestic partner KNOWS that they will accept Vivus' terms of a partnering deal they probably can make up for any milestone expenses by slowly buying up Vivus shares on the open market before they actually ink and announce the deal. They don't have to file with the SEC until they buy 5% of the outstanding shares. At let's say an average price of 2 3/4, they can buy back 1,590,000 shares before filing the form and in fact, the day before they actually file the SEC form they probably can get the share count up to 2M by buying another 400,000 shares at the last minute. This would mean an investment of $5.5M. After the announcement, Vivus shares will probably appreciate as you say to at least 8 bucks a share. Certainly they wouldn't want to immediately sell off their shares and in fact they probably would want to continue buying stock on the open market on any pull backs as they probably will have a future interest in buying out the company later in time when the stock price will most likely be much higher. At any rate it looks like a smart and profitable strategy for any company serious about partnering with Vivus with an eventual interest in a buy out.