WILMINGTON – Shares in life science firm PPD fell more than 5% Monday after the company disclosed some of its investors are selling 38 million shares. The tumble came despite other positive news from the company – it increased financial guidance for the quarter ending Sept. 30.
PPD (Nasdaq: PPD) is based in Wilmington and has a significant operation in Research Triangle Park.
“[S]tockholders affiliated with Hellman & Friedman LLC and The Carlyle Group Inc., have commenced an underwritten public offering of 38,000,000 shares of the Company’s common stock pursuant to a registration statement filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission,” PPD announced after the markets closed Monday.
“Additionally, the selling stockholders intend to grant the underwriters a 30-day option to purchase up to 5,700,000 additional shares of the Company’s common stock.”
PPD noted that the firm itself is not selling shares.
It increased guidance, noting “better than expected financial performance in both the Clinical Development Services and Laboratory Services segments. The stronger performance is driven by higher than expected revenue from studies unrelated to COVID-19 as well as higher than expected indirect and direct revenue from COVID-19 related projects.”
The company also noted that “PPD expects it would still achieve positive year-on-year growth in the third quarter of 2020 irrespective of any revenue attributable to COVID-19 awards.”
Revenues were increased to a range of $1.15-1.18 billion from $1.06-1.08 billion.
