
Stephen MacMillan, the former Stryker (NYSE:SYK) CEO whose abrupt departure stunned the orthopedics world earlier this year, did his level best to clear a romantic relationship with the company’s board but was ousted anyway, according to the Wall Street Journal.
MacMillan, who’s reportedly angling for a senior management positions at Johnson & Johnson (NYSE:JNJ), sought to clear his relationship with a former Stryker employee with members of the company’s board, according to the newspaper.
The former employee, Jennifer Koch, worked as an attendant on Stryker’s corporate jet fleet, according to the Journal. MacMillan asked chairman William Parfet and governance & nominating committee head Louise Francesconi for permission to date Koch in late September 2011, the newspaper wrote, citing "people familiar with the matter." MacMillan’s wife was already pursuing a divorce at the time. The directors said MacMillan could begin dating Koch as long as she quit the company first.
But the deal fell apart and MacMillan was shown the door when questions emerged about the timing of the relationship, the newspaper reported – even though MacMillan never broke any of the company’s rules.
"The board hired a lawyer to investigate, and while he turned up no evidence of wrongdoing, Mr. MacMillan had lost the confidence of some directors and was forced to resign, a person familiar with the matter said," according to the Wall Street Journal. "Ronda E. Stryker, granddaughter of the company’s founder and its biggest individual shareholder, remained upset that the still-married CEO was having an affair with the ex-employee, a person familiar with the matter said.
"’I am prepared to still run this company,’" Mr. MacMillan said during the board’s next meeting, in February, according to a person who was there. ‘But if you guys want to make a change, I will offer my resignation,’" the Journal reported. MacMillan was fired without cause Feb. 8.
Big backers wax bullish, bearish on NxStage
Institutional investors Deerfield Capital and Gilder, Gagnon, Howe & Co. took bullish and bearish stances, respectively, on home hemodialysis device maker NxStage Medical (NSDQ:NXTM) this year, according to regulatory filings.
New York-based Deerfield, which has also backed Insulet (NSDQ:PODD), Mako Surgical (NSDQ:MAKO) and NeuroMetrix (NSDQ:NURO) in the past, bought a 1.6% stake in NxStage in May 2008, according to the filings. A year later Deerfield had upped that to $4.9%, but by the end of 2010 the hedge fund owned just 1.2% of NxStage. On May 8, however, Deerfield bought another half-million shares, taking its stake to about 2.1% of Lawrence, Mass.-based NxStage.
Gilder, Gagnon, Howe, on the other hand, cut back on the stake it first bought into back in October 2010, shedding some 1.5 million shares last February to take its stake down to just 3.5%, from a peak of 8.6% at the end of 2010.
Apart from its interest in NxStage, Deerfield has also backed Insulet in the past and recently inked a credit facility with Mako. In 2009 it cut back on its stake in NeuroMetrix.
IPOs in Oz
The Australian IPO market could get a boost from a crop of U.S. life science firms, as more and more companies look to the less risk-averse investors Down Under to get them through the infamous "Valley of Death" between clinical success and commercialization.
Ventus Medical, which makes a device to treat sleep apnea, is looking to drum up A$40 million in a public offering on the ASX exchange, following in the footsteps of Osprey Medical, Reva Medical, GI Dynamics and HeartWare International (NSDQ:HTWR), which went public on Oz back in November 2008.
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- Mako Surgical (NSDQ:MAKO): Goldman Sachs lowers price target from $42 to $36, maintains "buy" rating.
- Medtronic (NYSE:MDT): Leerink Swann maintains "market perform" rating, $42 price target.
- Syneron Medical Ltd. (NSDQ:ELOS): Leerink Swann maintains "outperform" rating, $17 price target; Needham & Co. reiterates "buy" rating, $19 price target.