NEW YORK, June 5 – Bioinformatics company Informax said Tuesday it has adopted a shareholder rights plan designed to stave off an unwanted takeover bid.
The company’s board of directors has declared a dividend that will give shareholders rights to preferred stock. The rights plan has a 15 percent trigger, meaning that the rights can be exercised only if a person or group acquires 15 percent or more of Informax’s common stock.
“The Informax board of directors is taking this action to protect all stockholders of the company,” CEO Alex Titomirov said in a statement. “The rights are designed to provide the board with the flexibility and continued ability to determine the future of Informax and to realize the value of our stockholders' investment in the company."
Informax of Bethesda, Md., follows several other companies that have enacted such plans as genomics shares have continued to show weakness. Over the past few months, Orchid BioSciences, Aclara, Large Scale Biology, and Illumina have all adopted such plans amid depressed stock prices.
Informax’ share price, which closed at $7.70 on Tuesday, has recently been climbing back from a 52-week low of $2.85 reached in early May. The share traded at an all-time high of $31.75 in November.
A spokeswoman for Informax said that the rights plan was not implemented in reaction to a takeover bid.