Revelation Biosciences to Implement Reverse Stock Split
Revelation Biosciences (NASDAQ: REVB), which completed a merger transaction with Petra Acquisition, announced this afternoon that it will implement a 1-for-35 reverse split of its common stock.
The company gained shareholder approval for the reverse stock split at a special meeting held yesterday and will be effective as of tomorrow morning, February 1. REVB’s common stock will trade on a post-split basis at the beginning of trading on the same date.
Following the split, Revelation Biosciences will have approximately 672,460 shares of common stock outstanding. The company expects this move to increase its market price per share of common stock in an effort to regain compliance with the minimum bid continued listing requirement of Nasdaq. Additionally, REVB believes this reverse split will help the company appeal to a broader range of investors to generate greater interest and improve perception of its common stock as an investment security.
On May 24, 2022, the company received a deficiency letter from Nasdaq that it was not in compliance with its listing qualifications, which requires Revelation Biosciences to maintain a minimum of $2.5 million in stockholders’ equity and a market value of listed securities of at least $35 million or net income of $500,000 from continuing operations in the most recently completed fiscal year, or in two of the three most recently completed fiscal years.
Its failure to comply with the equity requirement was based on its quarterly report for March 31, 2022, reporting the stockholders’ deficit of $98,511.
Pursuant to the letter, Revelation Biosciences submitted a plan to regain compliance which contemplated capital raises of $10 million. The exchange then granted the company an extension until November 21, 2022 and while Revelation Biosciences did complete a $5 million offering in July 2022, it still reported a stockholders’ equity of $2,227,768 less than the equity requirement. As a result, the company received a second deficiency later on November 23, 2022.
Going forward, the company intends to continue to pursue further actions to satisfy Nasdaq’s minimum stockholders’ equity requirement.
Petra inked its $128 million combination with Revelation in August 2021 and completed the transaction in January 2022. San Diego-based Revelation is developing two drug candidates aimed at treating respiratory diseases as well as a diagnostic device for diagnosing viral infections.
At Revelation’s special meeting, stockholders also approved a proposal to increase the authorized common stock to 500 million shares and confirmed the appointment of Baker Tilly as an accountant to the company.