2024-04-17 23andMe CEO Anne Wojcicki plans to take her company private.

Question

2024-04-17 The Wall Street Journal.

23andMe CEO Anne Wojcicki plans to take her company private. Its stock closed at a new low.

23andMe’s stock closed at 36 cents a share on Wednesday [2024-04-18], a new low that translates to a market capitalization of about $200 million. 23andMe had more than that amount of cash in the bank at the end of last quarter, meaning the company’s enterprise value is negative.

Comments

Yep. There really have been only two alternatives once the NSADAQ issued 23andMe a delisting notice last November...which means there's only about 30 days left before NASDAQ dumps the company. The choices are to split the clinical/pharmaceutical side of the business from the consumer side (which is the one cratering revenue), or to pull everything back from the stock exchange and revert to a privately held company. Well, there is a third option, but it ain't pretty: remain a public company but become a "penny stock" and be considered a micro-capitalized corporation.

No matter what the outcome, if 23andMe stays in business I think the writing's on the wall: the genealogical side of the equation isn't bringing in any meaningful revenue. While it may not go away completely, I don't foresee any significant developments or improvement there. Unlike Ancestry, they don't have any recurring subscription-based model that's tenable; the masses have demonstrated they don't want to pay a thousand dollars per year just to monitor information about clinical DNA markers.

Anne Wojcicki doesn't want to let anything go, and if it reverts to being privately held she wants to have majority control. The money's running out, though (the data access disaster last year certainly didn't help matters), and operations and R&D will have to shrink, no matter what the outcome.

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I’m sorry for stock holders like you, Ed.

Corporate greed (check how much money Anne made and he C-level) and bad decisions killed another company.

I’m just said that I bet on 23andMe and wasted years of code development for my app on their data and API.

Answer 1

Here is a link for more information on a free major news website: https://www.cnbc.com/2024/04/18/23andme-ceo-anne-wojcicki-considers-taking-company-private.html

Answer 2

23andMe will run out of their runway soon, taking it private won’t change a thing. She’s kicked from the stock exchange already when the stock price went under $1.

So nothing much changes, someone will buy them over and as she has so many (useless and now also worthless) shares, taking it private will just mean that she’s going to cash in big time and those who still have shares are locked out.

How many shares does she have?

According to the last filing to the SEC, Anne Wojcicki's ownership of 23andMe shares is a bit complex. Here's a breakdown based on the most recent Form SC 13D filed on June 16, 2021 [SEC.gov]:

• Direct Ownership: Anne Wojcicki directly owns 937,936 shares of Class A Common Stock.
• Indirect Ownership:
  • She may be considered the beneficial owner of the shares held by ABeeC 2.0, LLC, which amount to 98,633,827 shares of Class B Common Stock. It's important to note that the filing states she disclaims beneficial ownership "except to the extent of her pecuniary interest therein."
  • The filing also mentions 2,500,000 shares of Class A Common Stock held by The Anne Wojcicki Foundation, for which Ms. Wojcicki disclaims beneficial ownership.

Total Shares (Considering Indirect Ownership):

Taking into account both direct and indirect ownership, Anne Wojcicki may be deemed to hold a total of:

• 937,936 (direct) + 98,633,827 (indirect through ABeeC 2.0) + 2,500,000 (indirect through The Anne Wojcicki Foundation) = 101,071,763 shares

Important Note:

The filing clarifies that Anne Wojcicki disclaims beneficial ownership of the shares held by ABeeC 2.0 and The Anne Wojcicki Foundation, except for her pecuniary interest. This suggests there might be some nuance to her ownership rights that isn't entirely clear from this filing.

Comments

For your consideration. Wikitree is about genealogy, biography, (ordinary and notable), and DNA research.

Anne Wojcicki's legacy on Wikitree will be that of pioneer, medical pioneer, inventor, and innovation, etc. Recognize and appreciate the ground-breaking DNA-medical research and enormous challenges that Anne Wojcicki and 23andMe have undertaken. 23andMe owns that database of DNA tests and research results.

Anne Wojcicki and 23andMe are making medical history and medical progress right before our eyes. The introduction of one successful drug could be a game-winning grand-slam-homerun.

Investors seeking safety, security, and solid returns may consider the 30-year AAA rated Virginia Tax Free Municipal Bonds, available right this minute at 4%, irrevocably federal and state tax-free forever. However, these bonds, like CDs, will never rally. And will never be a notable part of any history or biography.

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Her legacy will be that she destroyed a wonderful DNA company by betting on the wrong horse and just another be example of corporate greed. But we can agree to disagree on my verdict.

Surely I’d love that they make a breakthrough and present a cancer-curing drug to us. However, they haven’t done so in the last 10 years and it’s clear that the illnesses like Cancer, Alzheimer, Parkinson and similar are too complicated. To my knowledge, they don’t take Epigenetics into account which seems to play an instrumental role in those diseases.

• Epigenetics refers to modifications that affect gene expression without changing the underlying DNA sequence.
• Cancer is a complex disease caused by a combination of genetic mutations and epigenetic alterations.

Epigenetic changes can turn on oncogenes (cancer-causing genes) or silence tumor suppressor genes, both of which can contribute to uncontrolled cell growth and division, hallmarks of cancer.

Here's a peer-reviewed paper to support this:

• Epigenetic regulation in human cancer: the potential role of epi-drug in cancer therapy (https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/genetics/articles/10.3389/fgene.2022.885635/full) This paper discusses how epigenetic modifications can influence gene expression in cancer and the potential for using drugs targeting these modifications for cancer therapy.

So your comment is wishful thinking but their financial situation is publicly available (check their IR section and see how much FCF the company has vs how much money they are losing each quarter) and can thus be fact-checked.

Your comment about bonds has nothing to do with 23andMe or genealogy/DNA anymore, hence I will not comment on it further.

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"Revolutionary Discoveries" in science and medicine do not follow established paths nor established knowledge. Personal ownership is actually a plus.  Personal ownership is a strong endorsement and a strong motivator. Personal ownership is one of the qualities that allows the pioneer, the inventor, the "over-achiever" to achieve the "IMPOSSIBLE" or die trying.

It is no coincidence that Anne Wojcicki was born in Palo Alto and grew up on the Stanford University campus. 23andMe is Anne Wojcicki's brainchild, Anne's project, i.e., Anne's personal mission statement.

In actuality, taking 23andMe "private" is a survival mechanism that allows Anne Wojcicki to seek more funding for her objective of using DNA to develop drugs.

NOTE: There is very little correlation between wealth, I.Q., high academic credentials, and creativity. Creativity comes from a different part of the brain. Creativity is steeped in vision, motivation, and commitment.  Anne Wojcicki appears to be focused on and totally committed to her vision for 23andMe.