Office Depot (ODP), Valeant (VRX) Among 5 of the Day’s Big Winners

Shares of Affymetrix, Inc. (NASDAQ:AFFX) are trading up by about 4.1% in the afternoon hours. The gains come after the company decided to delay the vote on its proposed merger with Thermo Fisher Scientific Inc. (NYSE:TMO), arguing that the unsolicited offer that Origin Technologies made for the company on Tuesday evening could lead to a “superior proposal” by Thermo Fisher. Origin Technologies, a new entity created by former Affymetrix executives, offered $17 per share in cash, trumping Thermo Fisher’s offer of roughly $14 per share.

A few funds in our database are benefiting from the bidding war. Among them we can count Samuel Isaly’s OrbiMed Advisors, which declared holding 7.51 million shares of Affymetrix, Inc. (NASDAQ:AFFX)  as of December 31. 17 funds in our database owned more than 20% of the company’s outstanding shares as of that date.

Another gainer on Wednesday afternoon is Valeant Pharmaceuticals Intl Inc (NYSE:VRX), which is trading up by more than 5.5%, a continuation of the 18.11% rally seen during the first two days of the week. While the reasons for Tuesday and Wednesday’s gains are not completely clear, evidence suggests that several pieces of news that emerged earlier this week continue to drive the surge. On Monday, the company announced that CEO Michael Pearson is stepping down, and that billionaire activist Bill Ackman has been appointed as a Director of the company’s Board. Mr. Ackman’s fund, Pershing Square, holds a 9% stake in Valeant which comprises about 30.71 million shares and has suffered notable losses due to the stock’s recent demise. In addition, management will issue a revised statement of the company’s financial results, seeking to correct the “improper conduct” of its former CFO (and interim CEO) Howard Schiller, who has denied any such wrongdoing.

On top of Pershing Square, another 82 funds in our database were long Valeant Pharmaceuticals Intl Inc (NYSE:VRX) at the end of the fourth quarter, with their combined stakes accounting for more than a third of the company’s total shares. Another major investor of the stock is Jeffrey Ubben’s ValueAct Capital, which held 14.99 million shares of the company on December 31.

Finally, there’s Cerulean Pharma Inc (NASDAQ:CERU), a micro cap clinical-stage oncology-focused company that is seeing its stock post gains of more than 13% this afternoon, after it released encouraging clinical data for its lead compound CRLX101 in gastric cancer. According to the press release, “CRLX101 Localizes Selectively in Human Tumors, Sparing Adjacent Healthy Tissue.”

Among the funds that we track, only five disclosed long stakes in Cerulean Pharma Inc (NASDAQ:CERU) as of the end of the fourth quarter. Their combined stakes, valued at less than $3 million, accounted for roughly 3.7% of the company’s outstanding stock. Kris Jenner, Gordon Bussard and Graham McPhail’s Rock Springs Capital Management held ownership of 625,000 shares of the company on December 31, valued at $1.75 million.

Disclosure: Javier Hasse holds no positions in any of the securities mentioned in this article.