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iX Biopharma’s share price has shown resilience and then power over the past two trading days. This strength is part of a much larger recovery. iX has generated a year-to-date return of 278%. The explanation for the latest resilience appears to be the emergence of OCBC as a substantial shareholder, in a July 27 pre-market filing on the SGX. |
OCBC itself has not directly bought 5% of iX Biopharma. Its disclosure shows zero direct interest and a deemed interest in 55.154 million shares, representing 5.04% of iX’s issued shares.
The deemed stake is attributed to shares held or managed by businesses ultimately controlled by OCBC.
Most of the position comes through Lion Global Investors, which manages 53.254 million iX shares, or 4.87%, through a private-mandate portfolio and a unit trust.
The remaining 1.9 million shares are connected to BOS Trustee and Adeli Holdings.
That means the economic owners are clients of Lion Global’s private mandates and investors in one of its unit trusts.
The latest purchase is particularly interesting.
On 22 July 2026, Lion Global-managed portfolios acquired another 3.713 million iX shares, taking OCBC’s aggregated deemed interest from 51.441 million shares, or 4.71%, to 55.154 million shares, or 5.04%.
The transaction cost approximately S$1.522 million, translating to roughly 41 cents per share.
That purchase pushed the aggregated holding above the important 5% threshold, triggering the substantial-shareholder announcement.
| Buying from 10 cents onward |
Lion Global’s involvement did not begin in July.
It was one of the institutional investors named in iX Biopharma’s October 2025 placement, alongside the Ginko-AGT Global Growth Fund.
That placement raised S$6.7 million through the issue of 67 million shares at 10 cents each, with the funds primarily intended to support iX’s expansion into the United States.
However, iX did not disclose exactly how many placement shares Lion Global received.
It could have received a sizeable allocation and subsequently accumulated more shares in the market.
In February 2026, another placement took place -- this time with OCBC as the placement agent and the shares sold at 19.8 cents each -- but no information on the investors was provided for that S$15 million round.
The bigger message is that Lion Global-managed funds did not merely take cheap placement shares and sell into the subsequent rally. That does not guarantee that the stock rally will continue. |
→ See also:iX BIOPHARMA: Will These Upcoming Milestones Re-rate The Stock?
