Guardant Health (GH 1.68%) opened lower Wednesday after the company announced the pricing of shares being offered for public sale by SoftBank Investment Advisers, a unit of SoftBank Group.
The Japanese technology conglomerate is offering 7 million shares of Guardant Health in an underwritten public offering at $102, 7% below the price the stock closed at Tuesday, and has granted the underwriter a 30-day option to purchase an additional 700,000 shares at that price. The stock dipped to $101 in the morning, then recovered most of its losses. Shares were trading for around $107.80 as of 3 p.m. EDT, down by about 1.9% on the day.
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The sale by SoftBank was no surprise, plans for it having been disclosed in June when the company announced a secondary offering of 3.75 million shares to raise money for its own purposes. SoftBank has completed a number of stock sales this year as it raises cash and pays off debt. Notable among those moves was its massive $40 billion deal to sell Arm Holdings to chipmaker NVIDIA in September. The market on Wednesday was apparently concerned about the pricing of Guardant's shares, but the growth stock was selling for $102 just three weeks ago.
The pioneer in liquid biopsy blood tests to detect and identify cancer won't receive any of the proceeds from SoftBank's offering, but the company has $938 million in cash and no debt on its balance sheet after its own share offering. When asked on the latest conference call about the possibility of acquisitions in the future, Guardant's CEO said the company continues to look for opportunities.
