Shkreli ousted from 2nd post

..
WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 23, 2015 |
INTERNATIONAL NEW YORK TIMES
15
economy companies business
Shkreli ousted from 2nd post
Biotechnology company
fired him as chief, and he
resigned from its board
BY ANDREW POLLACK
THOMAS PETER/REUTERS
A petroleum complex near Tokyo. Prices are down about 15 percent so far in December after OPEC failed to restrain record-high production.
Oil prices fall in Asia and Europe
LONDON
Brent crude declines
to 11-year low, partly due
to glut on world markets
BY STANLEY REED
Oil prices hit 11-year lows in Asia and
Europe this week as a glut of crude on
world markets and the recent global climate accord continue to depress fossilfuel prices.
Brent crude oil, the international
benchmark, settled at $36.51 a barrel on
Monday in Europe.
Analysts say there is little to restrain
continued price declines in the near term.
Prices are down about 15 percent so far in
December, after an OPEC meeting failed
to produce measures to restrain recordhigh production. That meeting was
quickly followed by the United Nations
climate accord in Paris, which aims to reduce the world’s reliance on oil and other
carbon-emitting fuels.
The latest factor weighing on prices
has been unusually warm weather in
the United States and Europe, which is
reducing winter demand for heating oil
and leading to rising stockpiles of oil
products. The expectation that the
American government may soon lift a
decades-old ban on exports of crude
from the United States may also be affecting prices.
‘‘We are probably going to see the
weakness run at least through January,’’ said Richard Mallinson, an analyst
at Energy Aspects, a London-based
market research firm.
Analysts say that crude oil prices are
likely to remain under pressure in the
spring, when refineries typically shut
down for maintenance, weakening demand.
While few analysts had expected
OPEC to decide to cut production when
the group met in Vienna this month, the
signals from the meeting appeared to
show that the cartel, which accounts for
about 30 percent of world oil production,
was not even close to coming up with a
plan to try to manage the market.
‘‘Even compared to the low expectations, the meeting sent out negative signals,’’ Mr. Mallinson said. ‘‘There was
no unity and nothing that looked like the
basis for more coherence next year.’’
While disgruntled OPEC members
like Venezuela muttered about the ‘‘catastrophe’’ caused by rock-bottom oil
revenues, Saudi Arabia, Iraq and other
gulf countries are expected to continue
to produce at or near record levels, and
new supplies are expected from Iran,
assuming international sanctions are
lifted next year.
Analysts say that Saudi Arabia’s
strategy of keeping production high to
maintain market share and weaken
higher-cost producers is showing some
signs of working. For instance, the International Energy Agency, the Parisbased monitoring organization, forecasts that supplies from outside OPEC
will decline next year.
Still, those prospects have not been
enough to shore up prices. Production in
the United States remains strong, as
higher production from projects in the
Gulf of Mexico offsets declines in shale
oil production on shore, where low
prices have discouraged some energy
companies from investing in new
drilling. Russia, meanwhile, is essentially shrugging off the impact of Western sanctions over Ukraine and is still
producing at high levels.
In a recent report, the International
Energy Agency said it expected global
inventories to keep growing at least until late 2016, although at a much slower
pace than this year. ‘‘As inventories continue to swell into 2016, there will still be
a lot of oil weighing on the market,’’ the
agency said.
Martin Shkreli, who was arrested last
week on securities fraud charges, has
been ousted from his second pharmaceutical company.
KaloBios Pharmaceuticals, a California biotechnology company that Mr.
Shkreli gained control of in November,
announced on Monday that he had been
terminated as chief executive and had
resigned from his seat on the board on
Thursday, the day he was arrested.
KaloBios, which had been in severe financial straits before Mr. Shkreli’s involvement, did not name a replacement,
not even on an interim basis.
Last week, Mr. Shkreli was removed
as chief executive of Turing Pharmaceuticals, a privately held company in
New York that he co-founded late last
year.
The charges against Mr. Shkreli predate his management of either Turing or
KaloBios.
He is accused of using money from his
first pharmaceutical company, Retrophin, to pay off money-losing investors in
hedge funds he operated. He is also accused of misleading investors in the
hedge funds.
Mr. Shkreli, 32, who is free on $5 million bail, maintains that he is not guilty
and that he will be vindicated. Since his
release, he has live-streamed himself
playing online chess and guitar on YouTube. On Monday morning, he tweeted
that he had regained control of his Twitter account, which had been reportedly
hacked over the weekend.
KaloBios, a publicly traded company,
announced last month that it was planning to go out of business. Some of its
experimental drugs had not worked in
clinical trials, and it was running out of
cash and options.
Within days, Mr. Shkreli led an investor group that scooped up 70 percent
of KaloBios’s shares on the open market, at prices generally under $2 a share.
Once his involvement became known,
shares shot up briefly to more than $40
each. Trading in the stock has been halted since Thursday. The last quoted price
was $23.59 a share.
That Mr. Shkreli was terminated by
KaloBios so quickly after his arrest was
somewhat surprising since the Kalo-
Bios board of directors now consists
solely of Mr. Shkreli’s supposed allies.
One board member who came in with
Mr. Shkreli, Tony Chase, also resigned,
the company said.
Given its precarious situation before
Mr. Shkreli came in, KaloBios might be
in jeopardy, though Mr. Shkreli did organize a private funding round for it
that raised $8.8 million.
The private placement, in which outside investors paid $24.855 per share,
was consummated last Wednesday, one
day before Mr. Shkreli was arrested, according to a regulatory filing. It is not
clear if the investors will now try to rescind the deal, especially if shares of
KaloBios plunge when trading resumes.
Mr. Shkreli said he saw promise in
one of KaloBios’s drug candidates as a
possible treatment for a rare form of
leukemia. But Bloomberg News reported on Sunday that at least two of the
medical centers participating in a clinical trial of that drug had suspended their
work after Mr. Shkreli’s arrest.
RICHARD PERRY/THE NEW YORK TIMES
Martin Shkreli, who has been charged with
securities fraud, gained control of KaloBios,
a publicly traded company, in November.
An agreement KaloBios made to license a drug for Chagas disease might
also be in jeopardy now, since the deal
had not closed.
A spokeswoman for Savant Neglected Diseases, which licensed the
rights to the drug to KaloBios, declined
to comment.
Mr. Shkreli had said that KaloBios
would be able to get the Chagas drug approved for use in the United States without having to do clinical trials and then
would be able to charge tens of thousands of dollars for the treatment.
He said KaloBios would also be eligible to receive a voucher from the Food
and Drug Administration that could be
sold to another drug maker for hundreds of millions of dollars.
The plan raised alarm among doctors
who treat Chagas disease. They said the
drug, benznidazole, costs only $50 to
$100 for a course of treatment in Latin
America, where the disease is most
common.
In the United States, the drug is given
to patients free of charge by the Centers
for Disease Control and Prevention on
an experimental basis. About 300,000
Americans, virtually all of them immigrants from Latin America, have
Chagas disease, which is caused by a
parasite and can lead to severe heart
and digestive tract damage decades
after the initial infection.
The plans for the Chagas disease drug
called to mind what made Mr. Shkreli
the target of public outrage to begin
with. In August, his other company, Turing, acquired the American rights to a
62-year-old drug used to treat a different parasitic infection, toxoplasmosis,
and immediately raised the price more
than fiftyfold, to $750 a pill.
Turing is now being run by an interim
chief executive, Ron Tilles. Investors in
Turing said that they expected cuts in
staff and of at least some drug development programs because Turing needed
to trim expenses.
The judge presiding over the case
against Mr. Shkreli, Kiyo Matsumoto of
Federal District Court in Brooklyn,
granted a request to allow Evan
Greebel, a co-defendant of Mr. Shkreli’s,
to travel to Cancún, Mexico, for a longplanned vacation with his family.
Mr. Greebel, who was also arrested on
Thursday, was an outside lawyer for Mr.
Shkreli’s first drug company, Retrophin.
Mr. Greebel is now a partner in the law
firm Kaye Scholer and helped handle
the legal matters for the recent fundraising effort by KaloBios.
Mr. Greebel, 42, is free on $1 million
bail secured by his home in Scarsdale,
N.Y.
His travel is generally restricted to
the Southern and Eastern Districts of
New York, as is Mr. Shkreli’s travel. A
letter to the judge from Mr. Greebel’s
lawyer said the trip would help ‘‘preserve as great a sense of normalcy as
possible’’ for Mr. Greebel’s three young
children. The letter said prosecutors
would not object as long as the confession of judgment on his house was filed
before his departure.
Stephanie Clifford contributed reporting.
Countries
have borders.
Stories don’t.
INYT Classifieds
Business Opportunities
To All Shareholders and Former Shareholders of Kingate Global Fund. Ltd
Take Notice that the Joint Liquidators of Kingate Global Fund, Ltd (“the Fund”) have
applied to the High Court of the British Virgin Islands (“the Application”) for a
direction that documents containing information regarding your identities and
transactions with the Fund may be disclosed to Irving H Picard, the Trustee of the
liquidation estate of Bernard L Madoff Investment Securities LLC, in order to comply
with US Federal Rules of Civil Procedure and any order of the US Bankruptcy Court
in the matter of SIPC v. Bernard L. Madoff Inv. Secs. LLC, No. 08-1789 (SMB), Picard
v. Ceretti, et al., Adv. Proc. No. 09-1161 (SMB) (Bankr. S.D.N.Y.).]
The Application will be heard by the High Court of the British Virgin Islands on
26 January 2016.
You may regard such information as confidential, or otherwise consider
that the information should not be disclosed. If you wish to oppose the
Application or to obtain further information, contact immediately
[email protected].
To All Shareholders and Former Shareholders of Kingate Euro Fund, Ltd
Take Notice that the Joint Liquidators of Kingate Euro Fund, Ltd (“the Fund”) have
applied to the High Court of the British Virgin Islands (“the Application”) for a
direction that documents containing information regarding [your identities and
transactions with the Fund] may be disclosed to Irving H Picard, the Trustee of the
liquidation estate of Bernard L Madoff Investment Securities LLC, in order to comply
with US Federal Rules of Civil Procedure and any order of the US Bankruptcy Court
in the matter of SIPC v. Bernard L. Madoff Inv. Secs. LLC, No. 08-1789 (SMB), Picard
v. Ceretti, et al., Adv. Proc. No. 09-1161 (SMB) (Bankr. S.D.N.Y.).]
The Application will be heard by the High Court of the British Virgin Islands on
26 January 2016.
You may regard such information as confidential, or otherwise consider
that the information should not be disclosed. If you wish to oppose the
Application or to obtain further information, contact immediately
[email protected].
INSIGHTFUL
REPORTING FROM
EVERY CORNER
OF THE GLOBE
Explore
INYT.com
LEGAL NOTICE:
THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT
COURT NORTHERN DISTRICT
OF TEXAS, DALLAS DIVISION
CIVIL ACTION NO. 3:15-CV-1045
SECURITIES AND
EXCHANGE COMMISSION,
Plaintiff,
v.
ANDREW STITT, et al.,
Defendants.
LEGAL NOTICE TO
DEFENDANT ANDREW STITT:
NOTICE IS HEREBY
GIVEN THAT:
A Complaint has been commenced
by Plaintiff, United States Securities and Exchange Commission
("SEC") against Defendants, including Andrew Stitt ("Stitt"), alleging that Stitt violated Sections 5(a),
5(c) and 17(a) of the Securities Act
of 1933, and 10(b) and 15(a) of the
Securities Exchange Act of 1934
and Rule 10b-5 thereunder. The
Complaint seeks a permanent
injunction, disgorgement of profits,
plus interest, and civil penalties
against Stitt.
IMPORTANT WARNING:
You are hereby directed to contact
SEC Counsel in the United States
at 817-900-2638 within 10 days to
arrange to receive the summons
and complaint by mail, delivery
service, or email. you are also
hereby notified to file an answer to
the complaint or other responsive
pleading with the Court's Clerk at
1100 Commerce Street, Dallas,
Texas 75242, within 20 days of this
notice. If you fail to file to contact
SEC Counsel or to file an answer
or responsive pleading within the
time stated above, SEC Counsel
will request that a judgment by
default pursuant to FED. R. CIV.
PRO. 55(a) be entered against you
for failure to answer, plead, or
otherwise defend against the
SEC's complaint.
Dated Day of December 23, 2015.
NOTICE TO YIN NAN WANG,
ALSO KNOWN AS
MICHAEL WANG:
You have been named as a
defendant in a lawsuit filed by
Plaintiffs Liu Hongwei, Li Xia, Liu
Shuang, Xie Youshang, Wang
Ying, Yu Zhihai, Wang Wei, and
Yan Qiujin, in the United States
District Court for the Central
District of California. The name of
the case is Liu Hongwei et al. v.
Velocity V Limited Partnership et
al., and has a case number of
2:15-cv-05061-ODW-E. The Plaintiffs allege that you violated the
federal securities laws in connection with Velocity V, and defrauded
them into investing over $500,000
each in the EB-5 investment called
Velocity V. Plaintiffs seek money
damages against you.
You are directed to contact the
Plaintiffs at Reid & Wise LLC,
attention Matthew Sava, One Penn
Plaza, Suite 2015, New York, New
York 10119, (212) 858-9968, to
provide a valid contact name and
address so that you may be served
with a Summons and Complaint. If
you do not contact Plaintiffs within
20 days of the publication of this
notice, Plaintiffs will be entitled to
seek entry for your default and a
judgment against you by default in
the above-entitled case pursuant to
Rule 55 of the Federal Rules of
Civil Procedure.
READER
WARNING
While the International New
York Times has endeavored to
ensure, to its satisfaction, the
legitimacy and accuracy of the
advertisements included in the
newspaper at the time of
publication, it cannot accept
liability for loss or damage that
any of its readers may directly
or indirectly suffer or incur as a
result of relying on such
advertisements or in any
dealings with any party placing
such advertisements.
Need to place
a classified ad?
Contact one of the INYT
advertising offices
listed below. Most
credit cards accepted
IN EUROPE
FRANCE / ITALY / UK
AUSTRIA/GERMANY
Tel : +44 (0)20 7061 3534 / 3533
Email: [email protected]
[email protected]
IN MIDDLE EAST
ISRAEL
Tel: 972-3-512 17 74
Email:
[email protected]
For any other countries in the
Middle East, please contact
[email protected]
Tel: +971 4 428 9457
ASIA
Tel: +601 2697 4088
IN SOUTH AMERICA
ECUADOR
Tel: 4 689 250
Email:
luigi_lanterm/@hotmail.com
IN NORTH AMERICA
UNITED STATES AND
CANADA
Tel: 866-459-1121
Email:
[email protected]
IN AFRICA
NORTH AFRICA
Tel: 1 733 385
Email: [email protected]
EAST AFRICA
(out of UK)
Tel: 207 328 7763
Email: [email protected]
TRY A DIGITAL
SUBSCRIPTION
TO THE NEW
YORK TIMES.
99¢ FOR 4 WEEKS
THEN 50% OFF
FOR ONE YEAR.
Get started at
nytimes.com/globaloffer