Value Microcaps Free-For-All

[John Bates]

I bought some IMCL today in the middle of the afternoon at 34.6. I'll admit, I haven't really looked at it much lately.

I had a large position in this in 2001. Not quite "Martha-esque", but definitely overweighted. The big attraction was that BMY was buying 20% of everyone's shares for $70, and announced this when the stock was around 40. I had played it during the '79's bubble run to something like 140. I think the famous shorter "Anthony @Pacific" was touting it then as one of his few longs. Anwyay, the BMY deal moved the stock up slowly, allowing people to really pile in. I think I was up to 35% of my portfolio at one time. The assumption was that once BMY took their shares, the rest would collapse, but momentum took over and the post-distribution selloff was minor. I managed to sell off gradually from the mid-60's-low 70's and then more in the 60's. I had about a 5% position left when they announced their bad news on the delay of the filing of Erbitux & colon cancer. I sold quickly (38 or so), but missed loading up back under $10 for another 8-10 bagger. I played with 2-300 shares over 80, but sold on small losses. So, from this perspective, 34-35 something seems cheap :)