Institutional Buyer Sheds Light on Dendreon (DNDN)

An interesting event happened yesterday in the form of an SEC Filing on Dendreon (NASDAQ:DNDN) that ran the stock.  In a fed-filing from yesterday it was disclosed that BNP Paribas Arbitrage SA held 6,961,101 shares of Dendreon stock.  That equates to an 8.18% stake.  If you review the June 30, 2007 holders, this will put BNP Paribas at roughly double the holdings held by Barclays (largest holder previously).

This filing actually lists the transaction date as JULY 25, 2007, so there is a full six weeks of look back here. If that form is accurate on the ownership date, shares are higher now than on the trade date.  Also last night the company filed its form 424B3, which allows holders of the 4.75% convertible senior subordinated notes that were placed on June 11 and July 11, 2007 to resell notes and common shares.  This is actually a common event and does not necessarily mean any such sale is pending.

Other than its breast cancer Phase I data from last month, this one has been fairly quiet on the news front of late.

Yesterday there were some 13.68 million shares that traded hands and shares rose 5.6% from Friday’s close.  Shares are up another 1.5% today at $8.25 and it has already traded over 6 million shares in less than two hours of being open.  The stock did briefly put in a near-term high of $8.48 today, but have come back in.  The $8.30 to $8.35 had been the prior intra-day levels that acted as intraday highs in both July and August.

Jon C. Ogg
September 11, 2007

Jon Ogg produces the 24/7 Wall St. SPECIAL SITUATION INVESTING NEWSLETTER; he does not own securities in the companies he covers.