Benitec Biopharma (NASDAQ:BNTC) stock is rocketing higher in early morning trading on Tuesday after disclosing a new large stake in the company.
A filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) reveals that Morgan Stanley (NYSE:MS) has acquired a large amount of BNTC stock. The company notes that this had MS picking up a total of 249,174 shares of the stock.
So Morgan Stanley bought some shares of BNTC stock, but does that matter? It definitely does. With its recent share purchase, MS now owns a 5.2% stake in Benitec Biopharma. That gives it enough voting power to affect the company’s future decisions.
News of the share purchase by Morgan Stanley has other investors following suit. As of this writing, more than 24 million shares of BNTC stock have changed hands. To put that in perspective, the company’s daily average trading volume is about 385,000 shares.
Benitec Biopharma is an Australian company focused on the development of gene therapy and gene slicing treatments. This has it combining gene therapy with RNA interference to silence genes behind diseases.
Benitec Biopharma is currently using this technology to develop treatments for two disease types: orphan diseases and infectious diseases. That includes treatments for Oculopharyngeal Muscular Dystrophy (OPMD) and Hepatitis B Virus (HBV).
Benitec Biopharma is still an incredibly new public company in the biopharmaceuticals space. It was only incorporated in November 2019 before going public in April 2020. However, it has been around for some time before that being founded in 2001.
BNTC stock was up 104.4% as of Tuesday morning and is up 95.5% since the start of the year.
Benitec Biopharma is far from the only company major major moves on Tuesday.
Quite a few other companies are also seeing increases in early morning trading. That includes the likes of Occidental Petroleum (NYSE:OXY), QuantumScape (NYSE:QS), and Nuvve (NASDAQ:NVVE).
More Stocks on the Move
- Oil Stocks: Why XOM, CVX, BP, MRO and OXY Stocks Are on the Move
- QS Stock: The Big Reason Battery Startup QuantumScape Is Stumbling Today
- NVVE Stock: 12 Things to Know as Nuvve Starts Trading Today
On the date of publication, William White did not have (either directly or indirectly) any positions in the securities mentioned in this article.
