Intermune = Done Deal

Roche (Ticker: RHHBY) completed its acquisition of Intermune (Ticker: ITMN) today. I’ll have to wait until the October options expiration to close out the position. I sold the January 2016 $70 Puts at an average price of $0.65. I generally like to write Puts on these tender offer plays as it offer a relatively quick closing with minimal risk. Writing Puts can be risky so that’s why I’ll only enter these positions after an announced merger agreement. It’s all about the odds… just like poker.

Intermune - Almost Done

Roche’s (Ticker: RHHBY) acquisition of Intermune (Ticker: ITMN) is pretty much a done deal now. The company received all of the required regulatory approvals as of yesterday as we head toward to expiration of the tender offer on September 26^th.  I’ll most likely hang on and let the options expire in October unless I see something more compelling to free up some buying power.

Intermune Regulatory Approvals

It looks like Roche’s (Ticker: RHHBY) acquisition of Intermune (Ticker: ITMN) has a good chance of being completed by the end of this month if all the regulatory approvals are received. The company has to obtain approvals from three countries. The required approvals and decisions are as follows: US HSR 09/17, Australia 09/22 and Germany 09/25. This tender expires on 09/26, the day after the receipt of the last regulatory approval. The spread is not wide enough to play via common so I’ve been selling the January 2016 $70 Puts.

August Performance

August certainly didn’t feel like a positive month, but it was actually a decent month. Looking at my portfolio, the majority of the gains was attributed to the closing out of the Idenix short Puts. Apple (Ticker: AAPL) continued to act strongly as it heads into the September product announcement. The remaining positions pretty much held their own and did not have a significant contribution to the overall portfolio performance.

For the special situation / arb plays, I currently have the following positions: Bally Technologies (Ticker: BYI), Intermune (Ticker: ITMN), Safeway (Ticker: SWY), TRW Automotive (Ticker: TRW) and Lorillard (Ticker: LO). I’m aggressively playing Intermune via short Puts.

Performance Year to Date = +14.63% with the running monthly returns as follows:

January -0.67%

February +6.50%

March -2.69%

April -1.51%

May +7.30%

June +2.59%

July -1.46%

August +4.57%