DOLLY-the-Sheep company PPL Therapeutics shocked the City today by putting itself up for sale with three of its senior directors, led by chief executive Geoff Cook, stepping down immediatelyalongside two non-executive directors.
KPMG Corporate Finance is to handle the sale. It will be assisted by a four-man PPL team consisting of nonexecutive chairman Chris Greig, chief financial officer Lindsay Dunsmuir, business development director Adam Christie and another non-executive director Hugh Thompson.
The shock sell-off will either be as a whole or of separate products. It follows a series of setbacks for the company, which was once valued at 533 million thanks to the publicity generated by the cloning of Dolly the Sheep in July 1996.
The news came as PPL said losses had almost doubled at the interim stage to 13.48 million. The company has never made a profit since it listed.
Today’s sell-off follows a long decline that led to the eventual ousting of founder Ron James, who floated the company in June 1996.
The first-time cloning of an animal generated massive public interest, but the firm failed to turn science into business. Critics said James spent too much time on science and not enough on developing marketable products.
He was succeeded last year by Cook, who immediately abandoned a Scottish-based 42 million manufacturing plant. Shortly afterwards PPL quit a joint venture with German pharmaceuticals giant Bayer and admitted the failure of its treatment for emphysema.
Hedge fund group Metage Capital has a 20% stake in the company, which it has built up over the past few months.
Last June it attempted to elect a nonexecutive director to the board as a “shareholder appointed watchdog”.
The move failed but Metage later complained that PPL had failed to provide it with a detailed business plan and forecast that the company might go bankrupt. Although all the business is up for sale, certain products may well go to competitors in a break-up operation.
The most significant is Fibrin, a glue used to stop bleeding during complicated surgery, especially lung operations. The product has also been shown to speed up healing without inflammation seen in other products.
It also has recBSSL, a treatment for patients who cannot produce normal levels of lipase that leads to impaired digestion and absorption of fat.
Existing treatments require patients to take up to 50 tablets a day.
RecBSSL reduces doses. The problem for PPL is this is in effect a fire sale and industry insiders were saying the sales “will raise pennies”.
They also believe most of the cash raised will go in costs with shareholders in effect receiving nothing.
PPL shares added 0.38p to 5.50p.
