Malin plans €140m share buyback after Immunocore stake sale

Malin Corporation, the Dublin-based life sciences investment company, said on Wednesday it plans to buy back a further €140 million of its shares early next year, after selling its remaining shares in Nasdaq-listed biotechnology firm Immunocore.

Immunocore floated in New York in February last year, leaving Malin with a 6 per cent stake at the time.

Malin said that it has now sold its entire stake in Immunocore – including a previously-reported small disposal of shares sold in August – for €145 million, delivering a 90 per cent capital gain on the total €77 million it invested in the business. Immunocore’s most advanced prospect is an eye cancer treatment.

“While Malin retains confidence in the potential of Immunocore’s technology platform, clinical pipeline and management team, Malin determined that the realisation of value at recent market prices represented an optimal value inflection point for Malin,” said the company, led by chief executive Darragh Lyons.

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With €174 million of cash on its balance sheet, Malin said it plans to return €140 million of surplus cash to investors by way of a so-called tender offer share buyback in February, subject to shareholder approval.

“The remaining cash balance will be used to fund the company’s operations, including the possible investment of additional capital into Malin’s existing assets if attractive investment opportunities arise or if it is determined the additional capital will help advance the investee company towards a value inflection point or realisation opportunity,” it said.

The planned buyback follows on from Malin returning €95 million to investors in 2021, following the sales that year of stakes in two other investee companies.

Malin said that the estimated intrinsic value of it shares currently stands at €9.27, mainly comprised of the attributed value of its 14 per cent shareholding in clinical-stage biopharma company Poseida Therapeutics and 15 per cent interest in Mycovia, formerly Viamet, which received US approval earlier this year for an antifungal product.

Shares in Malin were up 12.5 per cent at €6.50 in midmorning trading in Dublin on Wednesday.

Davy analyst Colin Grant said that the sale of the Immunocore shares took advantage of the stock having tripled in the space of 10 months.

“The size of the tender offer equates to around 71 per cent of the market cap at [Tuesday’s] closing share price,” Mr Grant said. “The upside in the stock is already very significant, and we estimate that this upside will increase materially as a result of the stake sale in Immunocore and the associated tender offer.”