‘Friday morning, San Francisco, office of EcoR1 Capital, a three billion dollar biotech fund.

 

Oleg Nodelman falls on the Monocle's Billet from last week and drops his cup of coffee on the thick office carpet. He immediately called for a council of war on their investment in Galapagos. A few hours later, the SEC registered a Form 13D with this text:

‘Reporting persons : EcoR1 Capital

Number of shares held : 6,505,890 shares

Percentage of capital : 9.9%

 

Purpose of the transaction :

The Reporting Persons believe that the Issuer's securities are significantly undervalued and represent an attractive investment opportunity and have invested in the Ordinary Shares based on their belief in the long-term value of the Issuer.

The Reporting Persons intend to communicate with the management and board of directors of the Issuer (the ‘Board’) on a variety of matters relating to the performance, business, operations, strategic opportunities and governance of the Issuer, including the composition of the Board.

The Reporting Persons intend to regularly review their investments in the Issuer in light of various factors, including, but not limited to:

- Following the above-mentioned discussions

- the Issuer's financial position and strategic direction

- the measures taken by the Issuer's management and the Board

- price levels of Ordinary Shares...’ "

 

OK, I'll concede that it wasn't reading the Note that gave Oleg Nodelman the heebie-jeebies - the SEC document was registered on Friday 23 but is dated Monday 19 August. But it's funny how we all came to the conclusion, at the same time, that ‘Enough is enough.«  

This had a small effect on the share price, which rose by 20% after the publication.

 

Galapagos NV

At the same time, the FDA (Food and Drug Administration) validated Galapagos' IND (Investigational New Drug) application for their new cell therapy treatment. Obviously, for the Galapagos management, this news, which opens up the American market to them, is what explains the rise in the share price. At least that's what the head of investor relations, with whom I had a call on Tuesday, tried to explain to me. - call set well in advance of all these events.

I tried to explain to her calmly but firmly that the outcry of a shareholder representing 10% of the capital seemed to me to be the main reason. A sensitive subject, given his reaction, a sign that Galapagos head office must be in an uproar.

Oleg Nodelman is understandable. His entry price must be around €50, which represents around €325 million. At the current price, he is recording a loss of 46% or €150 million on this line. It's about time things got moving.

It should be remembered that if this company were wound up today we should receive around €50 per share, compared with a share price of €27 after the increase.

We added 1% on Tuesday and our average entry price is €36.15.

 

Have a good week,

Charles

 

Market and portfolio focus

Market/Portfolio

Monocle gained 0.9% over the week of 16 to 23 August, compared with 1.7% for the CAC 40 and 1.4% for the S&P 500. With no specific news, Aurora Innovation (1.5% of the fund) and Affirm (1% of the fund) gained 11% and 18% respectively over the week, returning around twenty basis points each. Galapagos made a similar contribution, reacting well to the publication of EcoR1 (see Note).

Three moves to note this week. First, we sold our position in LVMH. The Chinese consumer is putting the brakes on, even though the market is expecting LVMH's figures to rebound sharply in 2025. This is hard for us to see when 40% of sales are in difficulty. We prefer to get out.

After a lengthy analysis of Affirm, we halved our position (to 1% of the fund). The valuation is high and requires perfect execution: Max Levchin pulled off this triple salto with the publication of the results last night. Stock up 30% today.

 

We took a long position in S&P 500 futures (10% exposure) during J. Powell's dovish speech in Jackson Hole. We wanted to protect ourselves against 2 upside risks even though our exposure was low:

1/ A strong rebound in the markets following the Fed's change of regime;

2/ the publication of Nvidia's results, which would boost the AI sector;

The two risks having failed to materialise, we cut our position and reduced our current net exposure to 10%: being long the S&P 500 means being long a few highly valued stocks (we wouldn't be surprised if they fell by 20%), not really what we want today.

 

AI training of the week

So, did you find the answer you were looking for last week?

No intuition this time, the challenge was to reason in 2 steps i.e. to break down the problem to get out of it.

I light the first wick at both ends and the second at one end. After 30 minutes, the first wick has disappeared and I have half of the second left - so 30 minutes. That's when I light the other end: when the second wick has burnt out completely, it will have been 45 minutes.

Cette semaine, on vous sort un classique : dans un lac on introduit un nénuphar qui a la faculté de doubler en surface tous les jours. Si la plante a mis 48 jours pour recouvrir la totalité du lac, de combien de jours aura-t-elle eu besoin pour recouvrir ¼ du lac ?

 

Have a good week,

Antoine