Stock Offerings: Sequenom

NEW YORK (TheStreet) -- Sequenom (SQNM) became the latest company to raise money through an offering of shares, news that sent shares lower Wednesday.

Sequenom said it will issue and sell a total of 12.43 million shares of common stock at $4.15 in a private placement to certain investors. The price represents a 22.7% discount to Sequenom's closing price of $5.37 Tuesday.

Sequenom intends to use the net proceeds from the financing to advance its research, development and commercialization of various diagnostic tests, as well as for general corporate purposes.

Lately, Sequenom shares were down 2.6% to $5.23. Volume topped 1.72 million only 30 minutes into the trading day, compared to its 50-day average daily volume of 6.19 million.

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Elsewhere, NGAS Resources (NGAS) shares sank 12.3% to $1.28 after the natural gas company priced an offering of 3.96 million units at $1.31 per unit. Each unit consists of one share of the company's common stock and a warrant to buy 0.4 of a share of common stock. The warrants have an exercise price of $1.61 per common share.

NGAS said it expects to receive net proceeds of approximately $4.7 million to reduce outstanding borrowings under its revolving credit facility and for working capital and other general corporate purposes.

Banro (BAA) also announced details of a financing plan. The Canadian gold exploration company priced an offering of 61 million shares of common stock at $2.05 Canadian per common share.

Banro said net proceeds will be used to cover development casts of the first phase of its Twangiza project, additional drilling programs at Twangiza and other projects, as well as for administrative and general corporate purposes.

Meanwhile, Boston Properties (BXP) filed a shelf registration to sell from time to time up to $2 billion in debt securities, common stock, preferred stock, stock purchase contracts, and warrants. Shares of Boston Properties were off 0.2% to $81.02.

In IPO news, Niska Gas Storage Partners (NKA) priced its 17.5 million unit initial public offering at $20.50 per share, near the bottom end of the $20 to $22 expected range. The natural gas storage company began trading Wednesday under the ticker NKA but shares were losing ground, falling as low as $19.20.

-- Written by Robert Holmes in Boston.

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