RespireRx Pharmaceuticals Inc (RSPI)

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Of the controlling owners, Origin Ventures (16.8%) and Illinois ET-LLC (18.4%) were originally Pier shareholders who received their Cortex shares in the merger last year. So they and Samyang (14.8%) are legacy bagholders who presumably would just like to salvage whatever they can from their bad investment.

On the other hand, Aurora looks to be a newcomer, an activist shareholder instigating a much needed palace coup. Aurora may have been the one sitting at the bid accumulating shares over the last 6 months.

If so, Aurora has only invested approx $150 K for their small 2.1% stake in Cortex. But why would they bother to organize and instigate a palace coup for such a puny stake? One possibility might be that they plan to have Cortex do a financing (with or without a reverse split) with Aurora being the funding entity. After the financing, Aurora would be a large shareholder, thus making the subsequent sale of Cortex worth the effort.

Another possibility (albeit remote) is that with their past experience in the neuro sector at DOV Pharma, Lippa and Krisch think they see something in Cortex's technology worthy of further clinical development, and thus may actually want Cortex to go on as a bonafide bio company. Not impossible, but the quick sale of the company seems more likely.