Hedge Funds Making Big Moves Into These IPO’s While An Activist Rages

A freshly-submitted Form 4 filing with the SEC disclosed that Samuel Isaly’s Orbimed Advisors owns 3.25 million shares of Series A Preferred Stock and 1.95 million shares of Series B Preferred Stock of Dimension Therapeutics Inc. (NASDAQ:DMTX), all of which are convertible at any time into shares of common stock upon the closing of the company’s initial public offering. According to a recent Form S-1 filing, the gene therapy platform company offered an additional 5.5 million shares to the public, with it anticipating net proceeds from the sale of approximately $73.7 million, assuming an IPO price of $15.00 per share. Following this offering, the number of shares outstanding will stand at 24.88 million shares. However, it appears that Dimension Therapeutics Inc. (NASDAQ:DMTX) priced the 5.5 million shares at $13.00, below the previously expected range of $14.00-to-$16.00. At the same time, the shares of the company are currently trading 10% below the $13 price level, which might suggest that the market is not overly enthusiastic about the stock.

A freshly-amended 13D filing reveals that William Martin’s Raging Capital Management owns 1.94 million shares of EZchip Semiconductor Ltd (NASDAQ:EZCH), which represent 6.5% of its outstanding common stock. The investment firm’s position has not changed since its previous 13D filing on the company, which we covered earlier this month. Most importantly, Raging Capital reiterated its stance on the merger agreement between Mellanox Technologies Ltd. (NASDAQ:MLNX) and EZchip through the recently-published public filing. The long/short equity hedge fund expressed its belief that the supplier of end-to-end interconnect solutions can grow significantly as an independent entity and should not be sold. Let us remind you that the two companies recently announced a merger agreement, under which Mellanox would buy EZchip for $25.50 per share in an all-cash deal. At the same time, Raging Capital Management revealed its intentions to combat the aforementioned deal by soliciting proxies from other shareholders against approval of the deal at the annual meeting of shareholders that will take place on November 12, 2015. Even more to that, the investment firm nominated Paul K. McWilliams and Kenneth H. Traub for election to EZchip Semiconductor Ltd (NASDAQ:EZCH)’s Board of Directors, which suggests that Raging Capital is doing all it can to stop the deal between the aforementioned companies. Jim Simons’ Renaissance Technologies owned nearly 278,000 shares of EZchip Semiconductor Ltd (NASDAQ:EZCH) at the end of the second quarter.

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