Wednesday, 7 September 2016

Heavy Fund Ownership of Portola

Since our August 24th report on Portola Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (PTLA), the stock has risen a respectable 10.5% from $20.41 to $22.55. We believe that PTLA is a strong buyout target while it remains this cheap and its heavy institutional ownership implies that hedge funds agree. Other market participants have pointed out today that Deerfield Management owns over $100 million worth of PTLA after having picked up over 580,000 shares in Q2 according to the fund's latest 13F filing, PTLA was Deerfield's second largest total position that they added to in Q2, finishing second only to GW Pharmaceuticals plc (GWPH) which also had an excellent day, up over 20% on its own buyout rumors.



Deerfield is not the only fund to own shares in PTLA. Looking at Portola's institutional ownership shows that an incredible 93% of the float is owned by institutions:

























This information was prior to the company's CRL in August and there were more institutional sells than buys in Q2, but the heavy ownership and continued buying by healthcare-focused fund Deerfield is by far the more bullish sign. 

1 comment:

  1. Saw NURO mentioned in one of your tweets is that a company youve looked at in depth?

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