NYSE halts Huntingdon listing at last minute

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NYSE halts Huntingdon listing at last minute
By Patrick Hosking



HUNTINGDON Life Sciences, the animal testing group under siege from extremists, suffered a fresh blow yesterday as the New York Stock Exchange pulled the plug on a planned listing.

Moments before its shares were to begin trading, Catherine Kinney, the NYSE president, stunned Huntingdon executives gathered at the exchange to celebrate, by saying the listing was being put on hold. There were unconfirmed reports that she had received calls from worried members of the Wall Street financial community who feared reprisals from animal rights extremists.

Brian Cass, Huntingdon’s chief executive, told The Times: “We arrived for the start of trading at 8.30 or 8.45am, when we were told by the exchange the listing had been postponed. We’ve not been given any explanation at all.

“Obviously we’re extremely disappointed. We have fought our corner in what has been a vicious campaign.”

Mr Cass emphasised that the exchange had described the decision as a postponement, giving him hope that the listing could still go ahead.
http://business.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,9068-1770130,00.html

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1. The 'animal rights extremists reprisals threat' = misinformation?

Two things immediately spring to mind.

One is that Huntingdon has been the subject of a lengthy UK police investigation into allegedly suspicious shareholder movements including frantic patterns of capital raising by potential investors who in the last nine months have mortgaged everything they own including the shirts on their backs to plough into the long-awaited NYSE listing. Two news items late last year said organised crime from Russia may be behind this.

This may have been in response to Huntingdon's alleged claims to have 'discovered a cure for Alzheimer's and Parkison's'.

The second is more sinister and is in connection to the involvement of quack UK medic Dr Andrew Wakefield who is currently awaiting a gross misconduct hearing at the General Medical Council for his role in the MMR jab fiasco.

Wakefield notoriously was paid £50,000 by the UK legal Aid Board to investigate potential causative links between the MMR jab and autism in a class action brought about by parents of autistic children back in 1998.

His tests were conducted on a tiny sample - some dozen or so children - four of whose parents were actual litigants in the class action.

He fled to the US and was investigated by UK journo Brian Deer re his conections to quack medicine promoter Dr Hugh Fudenberg who claimed to have an alternative MMR vaccine made from 'goat serum'. Another patented invention of his was from his own DNA.

Wakefield is believed to be behind a US fundemental Christian group of investors pormoting the Huntingdon US listing in whcih Fudenberg is a key player.