Lynx Therapeutics announced after market close on Friday that it received a delisting warning from Nasdaq on Jan. 4.
According to the Nasdaq Staff Determination letter, the company’s securities are subject to delisting from the Nasdaq SmallCap Market due to its failure to hold an annual meeting of stockholders by Dec. 31, 2004.
Lynx said that it has delayed the annual meeting until a proxy statement filed with the US Securities and Exchange Commission on Oct. 29, 2004, has been approved by the SEC. The company has “tentatively” scheduled its annual shareholders’ meeting for Feb. 17, 2005, in order to approve its proposed merger with Solexa, which it still plans to complete by the end of the quarter.
“We will appeal this decision as we plan to hold an annual meeting of stockholders during the current quarter to vote on our proposed business combination with Solexa,” Mary Schramke, Lynx’s acting CEO, said in a statement.
The company said that its stock will continue to be listed on the Nasdaq SmallCap Market pending a final ruling of the Nasdaq Listing Qualifications Panel. Schramke told BioArray News that the appeal was filed on Monday. The firm does not know when Nasdaq will answer the appeal, but the average time to answer such appeals, according to Nasdaq’s website, is roughly 45 days.
Schramke added in the statement that the notice “does not come as a surprise as we elected to avoid the costs of holding multiple annual stockholders’ meetings in a relatively short time period.” Following the upcoming stockholders’ meeting, she said the company will be “in full compliance with Nasdaq listing requirements.”
Schramke does not believe that a delisting would affect the merger with Solexa if it were to occur before consummation of the deal. “Solexa and Lynx were fully aware of what the situation was, so I don’t see this changing anything,” she told BioArray News.
Schramke noted that Lynx has filed an application for initial listing of its shares following the merger.
Lynx also is struggling to meet a requirement that its stock trade above $4.00 for 90 trading days preceding the merger with Solexa. The company said in SEC filings that its does not currently satisfy the minimum bid price and intends to effect a reverse split of its outstanding shares in order to meet these requirements.
The company’s shares closed at $3.66 on Monday, up $.03.
— EW