OZ Management Discloses 5.2% Stake in Promising Payments Technology Company
In a Schedule 13G filing, Daniel S. Och’s OZ Management disclosed a new stake of 1.65 million Class A shares of Square Inc. (NYSE:SQ), which constitute 5.2% of the company’s outstanding shares. The mobile payment company, founded by Twitter Inc. (NYSE:TWTR)’s CEO and co-founder Jack Dorsey, went public in November 2015, issuing and selling 29.70 million Class A shares at an IPO price of $9.00. The shares of the San Francisco-based payments technology company have gained a whopping 48% in the past three months and are 7% in the green year-to-date. Analysts at Canaccord Genuity recently initiated coverage on Square Inc. (NYSE:SQ) with a ‘Hold’ rating and a price target of $13, but the company’s shares are already trading above the freshly-assigned price target. Square recently announced plans to offer loans to small businesses, seeking to become a traditional online lender. Even before the announcement, the company’s Square Capital was providing merchant cash advances (MCAs) to pre-qualified sellers. The terms of these MCAs are simple: merchants in need of fast money get funds from Square extremely quickly, usually on the next business day, in exchange for payments equal to a percentage of the payment volume processed by Square, or a fixed amount. The company has been growing at a high pace in recent years, with its total net revenue increasing to $1.27 billion in 2015 from $850.19 million in 2014 and $552.43 million in 2013. There were nine money managers tracked by Insider Monkey with stakes in the payments technology company on December 31. Tiger Global Management LLC, founded by Chase Coleman, had 6.95 million shares of Square Inc. (NYSE:SQ) in its equity portfolio at the end of December.
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Wildcat Capital Concerned Over Possible Private Placements of Common Stock
As revealed by a new Schedule 13D filing, Leonard A. Potter’s Wildcat Capital Management LLC currently owns 2.62 million shares of Sorrento Therapeutics Inc. (NASDAQ:SRNE), which make up 6.8% of the company’s outstanding common stock. While Wildcat’s equity holding in Sorrento has not incurred any changes since the end of 2015, the 13D was filed to disclose that Wildcat is concerned over certain possible public placements of common stock announced by the company earlier this month. Precisely, the biopharmaceutical company announced on April 4 that it had entered into definitive agreements with certain investors under which they will invest up to $150 million in separate private placements in newly-issued common stock at $5.55 per share and receive warrants to purchase shares with an exercise price of $8.50 per share. Wildcat Capital believes that Sorrento Therapeutics Inc. (NASDAQ:SRNE) will have to issue up to 32.32 million shares of common stock, which would increase the company’s outstanding shares by more than 45%. Wildcat Capital and other shareholders are concerned regarding the significant dilution that would take place should those transactions be completed and the “lack of information and disclosure provided by the Issuer regarding the Transactions”. Therefore, Mr. Potter and his team demand the right to inspect the books and records and other documents related to the definitive agreements and transactions mentioned above. Shares of Sorrento are down by 18% year-to-date. A total of 11 money managers monitored by our team were invested in the clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company, with them having ownership of 18% of its outstanding shares, at least for now. Bihua Chen’s Cormorant Asset Management had a 2.10-million share position in Sorrento Therapeutics Inc. (NASDAQ:SRNE) at the end of 2015.
