Welcomes Recent Announcement by Novavax of Licensing Agreement with Sanofi
Stresses Significant Value Still Remains to Be Unlocked at Novavax
Still Believes Novavax Would Benefit from Stockholder Representative on Board
RALEIGH, N.C., May 20, 2024 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Shah Capital Management, Inc. (together with its affiliates, “Shah Capital,” “we” or “our”) collectively beneficially owns ~7.9% of the outstanding common stock of Novavax, Inc. (NASDAQ: NVAX) (“Novavax” or the “Company”), making it a top three and largest non-index stockholder, today issued the below statement to stockholders regarding its intended efforts at the 2024 Annual Meeting of Stockholders scheduled for Thursday, June 13, 2024, 8:30 a.m. Eastern Time (the “2024 Annual Meeting”):
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Fellow Novavax Stockholders:
As a long-term strategic investor, we have been engaging with the board of directors of Novavax (the “Board”) for over a year in an attempt to unlock value on behalf of all of its shareholders, so it is heartening that our campaign has begun to deliver positive results. We long advocated for Novavax to explore potential strategic partnership opportunities and believe that the Company’s recent announcement of its entry into a co-exclusive licensing agreement with Sanofi is a long-awaited step in the right direction.
It is unfortunate, however, that it took our campaign to galvanize the Board into action. In our view, the Board presided over numerous enormous strategic errors, including colossal marketing failures in 2023-2024 season, no clear understanding of AI technology to effectively improve vaccine research efforts both on time and money, questionable regulatory management, and ongoing operating losses plus the massive dilutive share issuance at low price in 2023. It is also regrettable that the Board took so long to execute 50%+ cost cutting in light of massive prior losses that we asked for back in March 2023, taking them a year to follow through on the cuts.
However, we do accept that decent progress has now at last been made and that is why we have determined to withdraw our proxy campaign against the re-election of directors at Novavax’s 2024 Annual Meeting. But that does not mean that our engagement is at an end. We will continue to closely monitor the Company, including its operations, especially marketing, as we believe significant additional value remains to be unlocked at Novavax.
We also continue to believe that Novavax would benefit from the addition of a stockholder representative in the boardroom, one of the main reasons why we believe the Company ended up in such poor shape, and it is important that this be addressed.
We also reiterate our position that Novavax must adopt an aggressive and patient-driven sales and marketing strategy capitalizing on numerous peer-reviewed scientific papers showing lower efficacy and safety profile of competing vaccines.
At the heart of our campaign was our desire that Novavax’s scientifically proven protein-based vaccine franchise play a major role globally resulting in sustained profitable growth and we will be watchful of their progress. We thank thousands of fellow shareholders who supported Shah Capital in our campaign and who shared our concerns about the direction of the Company. Together, we have helped to deliver real change at Novavax.
Sincerely,
Shah Capital Management, Inc.
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About Shah Capital:
Shah Capital is a global investment firm employing a focused investment philosophy with an emphasis on turnarounds and special situations.
Media Contacts:
| Citigate Dewe Rogerson Shah Capital team | shahcapital@citigatedewerogerson.com |
