Weekly Winners & Losers: Energy Partners, AnorMed & Key Tronic

Investopedia Advisor submits:

Winners:

• Shareholders of Energy Partners, Ltd. (EPL) are feeling like they struck oil this week as this stock soared from $18.25 to $25.01 (or 37%) as it was offered to be bought. More specifically, Woodside Exploration Ltd., an Australian petroleum company, offered to buy the American oil and gas exploration company for $23.00 per share. However, this offer would only apply if Energy Partners is to cancels its upcoming acquisition of a Stone Energy Company (SGY), which is also an oil and gas exploration company. Woodside also added that its offer to buy Energy Partners could rise to as high as $24.00, assuming it can receive a favorable ruling from the courts to drop any termination fees that would arise if Energy Partners canceled the Stone Energy acquisition. Energy Partners has not yet decided upon how to proceed and is currently examining both Woodside’s takeover offer and its own acquisition deal with Stone Energy.
• AnorMED Inc (AOM) showed signs of good health as its shares received a big boost to its share price this week. Shares of the biotech drug company climbed an amazing 80% ($5.55 to $9.94) over news that AnorMED has rejected a takeover made by Genzyme Corporation (GENZ) to acquire the company’s shares for $8.55 a share. Genzyme has expressed interest in AnorMED for a long time now. In fact, the two biotech companies have been in contact with each other ever since October of 2005. More specifically, Genzyme is most interested in AnorMED’s highly anticipated stem cell transplant related drug, Mozobil. Since AnorMED’s share price remains high even after rejecting the offer, suggests that the market assumes that a much higher second offer may be imminent.

Loser:

• Share prices of Key Tronic (KTCC) slid 22% this week due to lower quarterly sales. The electronics manufacturer reported earnings from last quarter to be $7.12 million. While this does represent a substantial increase over earnings from the same quarter of last year ($2.77 million), most of this increase can be attributed to a tax benefit totaling $5 million. In actuality, Key Tronic’s operational earnings should have been lower, because this quarter’s revenues dropped compared to last year by $52.52 million and $53.15 million, respectively.

EPL 1-year chart:

AOM 1-year chart:

KTCC 1-year chart:

By Albert Phung, Contributor - Investopedia Advisor

At the time of release Albert Phung owned no shares in the companies mentioned in this article.