Tuesday's Early Winners & Losers

AudioCodes (AUDC) jumped more than 5% in extended trading Monday on word that billionaire investor George Soros had taken a 6.4% stake in the Israeli company through his Soros Fund Management firm. Some 2.8 million shares (as of March 23) will issue on conversion of senior convertible bonds held by Soros. AudioCodes, which makes Internet-communications products, was climbing 35 cents to $7.20 after hours.

CombinatoRx (CRXX) fell after the Cambridge, Mass., biotech announced disappointing preliminary results from a midphase study of its proposed treatment for rheumatoid arthritis, CRx-139. The treatment is a combination of prednisolone, an existing anti-inflammatory, and paroxetine, an antidepressant.

The treatment failed the primary endpoint of the trial, which called for a statistically significant difference from prednisolone alone at day 70 as measured by ACR 20 (a 20% improvement in symptoms, according to American College of Rheumatology standards). The testing did reveal that CRx-102 was more effective than prednisolone alone by other measures. Shares of CombinatoRx were down 21 cents, or 2.9%, to $7.05.

Phillips-Van Heusen (PVH) slipped after guiding to the lower end of Wall Street's earnings consensus for fiscal 2007 as per Thomson Financial, which had predicted a profit of between $3 and $3.06 a share. Projected revenue, at $2.4 billion, is above the mean, and results for fiscal fourth-quarter earnings topped estimates. Still, the New York-based apparel maker was losing $2.30, or 3.9%, to $57.

SBA Communications (SBAC), which operates wireless-communications towers, closed its $300 million convertible senior bond offering, along with another $50 million principal amount of notes on exercise of the initial purchasers' overallotment option. The offering was first announced last week. Shares of the Florida-based company were easing by 37 cents, or 1.3%, to $29.25 in recent after-hours trading.

>To order reprints of this article, click here: Reprints