Pharmally International Holding Co (康友製藥), a maker of large volume parenteral solutions for vaccines and intravenous medicines, yesterday tried to allay investors’ concerns about a major share sale after the move triggered a sharp decline in its stock price.
The stock yesterday tumbled by the daily maximum of 10 percent for the third consecutive session to close at NT$392 after the company on Tuesday last week submitted a filing with the Taiwan Stock Exchange to sell 1.3 million shares, rocking investors’ confidence.
Pharmally chairman and general manager Tony Huang (黃文烈) submitted the filing to unload the shares in his personal capacity, as well as through Profit Gate Investments Ltd, one of the company’s units, the filing showed.
“We sold the shares at the urging of a number of our strategic partners, who said that they wished to expand their long-term positions in the company,” Huang told reporters at a news conference in Taipei.
However, the company halted the transaction after 850,000 of the 1.3 million shares were transferred, Huang said.
“We remain fully confident in the company’s prospects,” Huang said, adding that there has been no change to the company’s operations or its management team.
The sale would bolster the company’s ties with its Indonesian partners and shareholders, Huang said, adding that the spouse of a major shareholder last month sold 300,000 shares to a new investor in Hong Kong.
However, Huang said that he now regrets Tuesday’s sale, as it caused turbulence.
“I still hold a 34.08 percent stake in the company,” he said, adding that the best time to cut and run would be after the company’s Indonesian plant gets the green light to mass produce vaccines.
Pharmally stock soared to an intraday high of NT$538 during Friday last week’s session, as PT Biotis Prima Agrisindo (帝斯生技), its Indonesian subsidiary, prepares to meet the country’s good manufacturing practice requirements to begin mass producing and marketing its avian influenza vaccine before the end of this year.
The surge briefly made the stock Taiwan’s second-most expensive and the most expensive in the biotechnology sub-index, but it was quickly surpassed by contact lens manufacturer St Shine Optical Co (精華光學), which yesterday rose 1.1 percent in Taipei trading to close at NT$551.
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