Despite Gandalf Technologies Inc’s hostility to the idea of being acquired, the Nepean, Ontario firm was a hot property on Nasdaq last week, with over 16m shares changing hands on a single day. Another 2.8m shares traded in Toronto, meaning that more than half the outstanding shares changed hands in a single session. There are no signs of a predator closing in. Rather, commentators pointed to the magic of the word ‘technologies’ in the corporate name, coupled with the spate of acquisitions in the ISDN field of late as reasons for the feeding frenzy. For its part, Gandalf attributed the activity to San Francisco broker and fund manager Hambrecht & Quist LLC’s buy recommendation on the company.
