Monday, November 8, 2010

Some Welcome News For Immucor

Immucor (Nasdaq: BLUD) got some much-needed good news today, announcing that the Department of Justice informed the company that the anti-trust investigation was closed.

This issue popped up about 18 months ago, just after I initiated on the company when I was an analyst. I always thought the investigation was ridiculous, and the idea that Immucor and Johnson & Johnson (NYSE: JNJ) were cooperating on pricing was nonsense. Nevertheless, it was part of a burst of antitrust investigations that seemed to coincide with the new administration in Washington, and there was certainly some down-side risk if the DoJ had decided to pursue actual charges. What's more, it held the potential of being a big cost sink for the company.

I think most people had calmed down on the risks of this issue over the past year or so, so I don't expect a big move in the stock from here. That said, it does remove a large open-ended risk and it one less thing to worry about.

Disclosure - I own shares of JNJ.

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