Consistent with their investment intent, each Reporting Person may from time to time discuss with the Issuer’s management, directors, other shareholders and others, the Issuer’s performance, business, strategic direction, capital structure, product development program, prospects and management, as well as various ways of maximizing stockholder value. Representatives of the Reporting Persons are engaged in discussions with the Issuer’s management and other third parties with respect to a potential extraordinary transaction involving the Issuer and other third parties. There is no assurance that any such transaction will develop or materialize, or if it does, as to its timing or whether the Reporting Persons will participate.
This sure sounds like Perceptive is trying to arrange a reverse merger transaction with Athira Pharma as the shell. This idea is a little riskier, Athira hasn’t declared strategic alternatives and has some pretty significant cash burn, time isn’t on Perceptive’s side to a get a deal done. If we get well into 2025 and there’s no deal, the cash burn might push the company to raise equity and pursue the original plan.
Here’s my back of the envelope math on Athira:
The fairly small cash balance available to a reverse merger candidate could be an issue (I typically don’t look at ones much smaller than this one), but as we saw with ATVE, some of these deals have been structured in a way where the reverse-merger candidate is really only interested in the public listing shell and legacy cash can be paid out as a special dividend to original shareholders.
Disclosure: I own shares of ATHA
