Former Secretary of Defense William Cohen, and Jim Kimsey, former chairman and CEO of America Online, joined the board April 26. In addition, Thayer has entered into a strategic partnership with The Cohen Group under which Cohen's firm will assist Thayer in finding and evaluating investment opportunities worldwide. Cohen and Kimsey join a board stocked with power players such as former vice-presidential candidate Jack Kemp, rainmaker and Clinton ally Vernon Jordan, and former American Express CEO Jim Robinson. Spherix, a Beltsville-based biotech firm, has taken a page from the MicroStrategy handbook. The company recently sent a letter to shareholders advising them to take their stock out of street name, so it can't be borrowed by short-sellers.
Shorts borrow stock and then sell it, hoping to buy it back in the future at a lower price.
This will take the stock out of play and force the short sellers to cover by buying into the market. Once this occurs, our hope is that the stock price will rise to the value conferred by the general market rather than remain imprisoned by the antics of the short sellers. Short-sellers are a perfectly valid part of the market, and are, in fact, subject to much more stringent rules than are stock buyers. But CFO Richard Levin says the company has no plans to initiate a stock buyback. Haseltine will speak about the future of biotech, as well as the impact of computers and other technologies on the sector.