Solexa seals $75 million equity line; Alberta Clipper prices, upsizes PIPE for C$25 million

By Sheri Kasprzak

New York, Sept. 20 - Solexa, Inc. entered into a $75 million common stock equity financing with Azimuth Opportunity Ltd.

Under the two-year agreement, Azimuth may buy shares of Solexa at a discount ranging from 3.625% to 5.375%, based on the stock price.

On Wednesday, the company's stock climbed by 0.59%, or 5 cents, to end at $8.54 but lost 2 cents in after-hours trading (Nasdaq: SLXA).

Proceeds will be used for the development and commercialization of the company's Genome Analysis System. The rest will be used for working capital and general corporate purposes.

Solexa completed a private placement of its stock back in November 2005, selling 10 million shares at $6.50 each. Leerink Swann & Co. was the placement agent for the deal, which closed Nov. 22.

The company also settled a private placement of its stock on March 25, 2005, when the company sold 8,125,000 shares at $4.00 each.

Moving to the company's latest earnings statement, Solexa reported a net loss of $9.78 million for the quarter ended June 30, compared with a net loss of $9.39 million for the corresponding 2005 quarter.

Based in Hayward, Calif., Solexa develops technologies to perform a range of analyses, including whole genome re-sequencing, gene expression analysis and small RNA analysis.

Alberta Clipper's C$25 million deal

Looking to the oil sector, Alberta Clipper Energy Inc. negotiated and later increased the size of a private placement for C$25,000,008.

The offering comes as oil prices continued to fall. Oil prices gave up $1.20 to end the session at $60.46 per barrel.

"When you need the cash, you'll deal with the conditions," said one sellside market source familiar with the resources sector. "The conditions right now aren't ideal, but if you're a strong enough company, you'll muddle through."

In the case of Alberta Clipper, the stock did drop Wednesday, losing 3.2%, or 20 cents, to close at C$6.05 (Toronto: ACN). The real news came from the volume of Alberta Clipper shares traded Wednesday. A total of 1,169,356 shares were traded Wednesday, compared to an average of 193,179 shares.

The offering includes up to 4,166,668 shares at C$6.00 each, a slight discount to the company's C$6.25 closing stock price on Tuesday.

GMP Securities LP leads the syndicate of underwriters placing the deal, which is scheduled to close in early October.

The deal priced early Wednesday as a C$20,000,004 offering of 4,166,668 shares.

Proceeds will be used to fund the company's expanded Leduc light-oil exploration program in the Sylvan Lake area of Alberta.

Alberta Clipper has headed to the PIPE market for funding before, most recently in May with a C$12.36 million offering of 2.4 million flow-through shares at C$5.15 each. That offering was also placed through a syndicate of underwriters led by GMP.

When that deal priced on May 31, the stock lost 7 cents to close at C$4.00.

Calgary, Alta.-based Alberta Clipper is an oil and natural gas exploration, development and production company.

In other oil news, CanArgo Energy Corp. priced a NOK 118.3 million private placement of 13 million shares at NOK 9.10 each.

The deal is expected to close at the end of this week.

Proceeds will be used for capital expenditures in the Republic of Georgia, including securing drilling equipment for appraisal projects. The rest will be used for general corporate purposes.

After the offering was announced Wednesday morning, the company's stock lost 9.55%, or NOK 0.95, to close the day at NOK 9.00 (Oslo: CNR).

Oslo-based CanArgo is an oil and natural gas exploration company.

Storm Cat stock edges up

In secondary market news related to oil offerings, after announcing a C$23,111,110 private placement on Tuesday, Storm Cat Energy Corp. saw its stock climb by 2.94%, or 4 cents, to end at C$1.40 (Toronto: SME). On Tuesday, the stock lost 4 cents, or 2.56%, to close at C$1.52.

In the placement, the company sold units of one share and one warrant for 0.28 of a share at C$1.58 each and flow-through shares at C$1.80 each.

Storm Cat, based in Calgary, Alta., is an oil and natural gas exploration company.

Cell Therapeutics stock slips

In the biotech sector, Cell Therapeutics, Inc.'s stock dipped on Wednesday after announcing a $40 million direct placement on Tuesday and a $15 million stock deal with Novartis Pharma AG on Monday.

The stock gave up 9 cents, or 5.14%, on Wednesday to settle a $1.66 (Nasdaq: CTIC), before losing another 2 cents in after-hours trading activity. On Tuesday, the stock fell by 15.87%, or 33 cents, to close at $1.75. On Monday, the stock gained 13 cents, or 6.67%, to close at $2.08.

Volume of the company's shares traded remained substantially elevated on Wednesday with 12,447,367 shares traded compared with the average 1,648,660 shares. On Tuesday, the volume closed at 30,461,440 shares traded, compared with an average of 1,198,410 shares.

In the $40 million direct offering, the company intends to sell shares at $1.73 each. That offering is slated to close Thursday, and the shares are being offered under the company's shelf registration.

Rodman & Renshaw, LLC is the lead agent for the deal.

The deal comes on the heels of Cell Therapeutics' announcement that it will close a $15 million stock deal with Novartis Pharma as part of their license and co-development agreement to develop and commercialize Xyotax for lung cancer.

In that deal, Novartis agreed to buy shares also at $1.73 each.

Cell Therapeutics, based in Seattle, develops treatments for cancer.

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