Since an EU commissioner can’t be hired, isn’t that new Dutch CFO at least a step in the direction of the EU?
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Koivunen is no longer on the list of the 100 largest shareholders; at the end of November, he still owned 112,200 shares:
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True! A very big RED FLAG. 
Syrjälä’s holdings haven’t been updated either. If it turns out that sales have occurred, the share price will take a big hit.
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It is noteworthy that Koivunen apparently took a position (90,000) sometime last summer. And now they have dropped off the top 100 list. Quite erratic, at least if they disposed of most or all of it, as the 100th spot on the list currently requires 70,000 shares. Especially considering that no major news has supposedly been released by Faron.
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According to shareholder lists, the majority of the purchases were made in August, followed by further additions to the position in smaller batches.
Given the individual’s background, many viewed these purchases as a significant positive signal, as did I. The oncology unit at Oulu University Hospital is one of the clinical sites for Bex, so there is likely non-public information regarding the research available there.
There are, of course, many different opinions on this and things can be interpreted in various ways, but in my view, several things were made public in November-December that could be interpreted negatively. These included, in my opinion: the abrupt CFO change, the drawdown of an additional loan tranche from HCM, and the highly subjective research results presented at ASH. There is also no information regarding the funding for the next clinical phase, and many factors suggest they are moving forward without a partner.
For the reasons mentioned above, I am personally taking a very cautious approach toward the stock in the short term, at least in the current situation.
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Who are these three new members you are referring to? Those same names have been there since October 2024:
It would of course be nice to know who belongs to the solid tumors advisory board you mentioned, because the company hasn’t issued any updates regarding THIS EITHER, other than Bono’s ramblings.
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Oh, look at that, you’re right. Mika, Naval, and Christophe are old-timers. From Bono’s speech, I just got the impression that three focus on solid tumors and three on blood cancers. He was hyping up Toni and Tom so much that I thought they were new recruits. Then again, in medicine, events from a year ago are like yesterday’s…
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I checked and saw that Koivunen had appeared on the list in the late August update; they weren’t there at the end of July. This means those purchases occurred sometime in August, when the share price was at a fairly high level for the year. In contrast, throughout December, the price stayed significantly lower than that August level. Personally, I see tax-loss selling as the most likely reason for this.
Generally speaking, it’s a bit silly to draw too many conclusions from these shareholder lists at the end of the year. Especially since the year’s lowest share price was in December, making it very likely that losses were realized for tax purposes. I would place more weight on the updates during January, when we can better see whether those who sold have returned or not. At least on the first trading day of the year, someone was certainly buying in quite large quantities.
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I wouldn’t interpret it as a bigger red flag just yet, because there are logical explanations for this other than exiting the position. He was on the shareholder list directly as a private individual, holding quite a large position (over 100,000 shares). He should definitely have subject matter expertise on the topic, so it would be quite erratic behavior to first enter with a large position in summer '25 and continue growing it, and then suddenly sell everything now, especially when all the news has been exclusively positive.
Could the explanation be, for example, moving the investments into an insurance wrapper? OP Asset Management is the 6th largest owner with over 2 million shares, so even though their position has decreased by 70,000 shares, ownership changes of hundreds of thousands of shares can easily be lost in that volume, as -70,000 shares is only the net change in ownership during the review period.
OP also seems to be advertising this service on their website:
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You can explain away everything with tax-loss selling etc., but in my opinion, the share price development over the last week followed solely the behavior of the retail herd. On Nordnet alone, 113 new retail investors decided to invest their money in Faron on Friday:
Even Kauppalehti published an article just as the year turned, predicting Faron to be THE biggest gainer of this year as well.
Sure, this is one explanation if you can’t think of anything else. However, under OP Asset Management are the holdings of OP’s funds, nothing else. Holdings inside an insurance wrapper would appear under the name of OP-Henkivakuutus (OP Life Insurance), which issues the insurance:
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All right, thanks for the clarification 
The insurance world isn’t that familiar to me, so I just somehow assumed that OP Asset Management handles OP’s investment insurances… mainly due to the size of their position, I thought that a large number of investors / insurance wrappers were baked into those +2 million shares.
But in any case, I would think the most logical reason is transferring investments into an insurance wrapper or tax selling. In principle, transferring investments to one’s own investment company would also make sense, but then we would probably see some new Oy (Ltd) on the shareholder list with a correspondingly increased position, which is why this is perhaps unlikely?
Somehow I’m still inclined to think that an oncologist investing in Faron is a long-term investor, so that kind of jumping around wouldn’t really make sense. Especially considering that, from a medical perspective, the evidence of bex’s efficacy is only improving.
In addition, it’s always good to remember that personal reasons can be a possible explanation for selling.
Either way, I interpret the situation such that his disappearance from the shareholder list is not a negative signal about Faron as an investment.
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I also find it noteworthy that among the top 100 owners, the number of shares held has increased.
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Jussi Koivunen has owned Faron shares since at least 2024; I didn’t look at earlier years.
And the buys and sells went roughly like this (Figures have not been verified, so please correct):
Year 2024 t€
Aug +14.5
Sep +28.15
Oct +12.0
Nov -40.0
Dec 0
Year 2025 t€
Jan 0
Feb +15.0
Mar -15.0
Apr -14.65
At the end of April, the Faron shares were sold, so the balance was 0
Aug +91.2
Sep +5.0
Oct +15.0
Nov +1.0, balance 112.2
In December, he no longer appears on the list of the 100 largest shareholders, so he sold at least 42.2 t€.
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So, an opportunistic trader.
A tip for this entire thread: I can’t think of another one where people quibble over such insignificant trivialities. Listen up, boys, that’s not how you grasp the essentials and beat the market in investing!
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Wasn’t Juho J previously Faron’s COO (Chief Operating Officer)? What is the status of this “position” nowadays? Who handles those duties, or is it unnecessary?
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The “getting caught up in the weeds” that you mentioned is just one example of a psychological phenomenon called confirmation bias that also occurs in the investing world. This is when even insignificant minor details are interpreted through a typically very optimistic framework internalized by the investor. I don’t understand either why the buys or sells made by someone like Koivunen should be followed so closely. At this stage, there is more reason to monitor what kind of stock exchange release regarding a financing solution will eventually be issued 
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Having been involved for 1.5 years now, I have received incorrect information from Juho twice, and they concern schedules… 1: Faron was supposed to partner by 2025; everything is “heavily ongoing” (partnering), “We are in the driver’s seat,” “soon,” “thinking of shareholders’ best” (I believe this), a prediction as certain as Turku mustard…. 2: the number of share issues before partnering.
That’s that. If we aren’t in Phase 3 starting from the JPM event, then more share issues are coming…
The drug has progressed, however. This could be a done deal, but the future looks good.
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If you want to think about it through Faron’s story, why on earth do they even need to go to JPM anymore? At least they shouldn’t be looking for a partner there, but of course it’s also possible they’d go there to announce a partnership. I don’t know. To me, the whole JPM is pretty irrelevant. As far as I understand and recall, it’s an invitation-only event, meaning companies are invited to present/be present.
Valkoinen_peura already summed this up well. If Koivunen’s buys were previously seen as a BULL signal, then now the sells must be a BEAR signal. It can’t be that the first one is BULL and the second one is nothing. After all, Koivunen has a bit of a different profile than, for example, Saku Koivu, so I personally understand if someone wants to construct a signal from this. I would say you can build some kind of BULL/BEAR signal from those, but then you still have to understand / be able to evaluate the magnitude of the signal. Is it significant or just noise..
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Well, it doesn’t really work that way. 
It’s by no means set in stone that every bull signal must be matched by an equally strong bear signal. Funny thought! Generally, it’s thought that if someone buys a stock, there’s practically only one reason for it. The buyer in question thinks the stock is a good investment. On the other hand, there can be countless reasons for selling. Buying a house, buying a car, distributing an early inheritance, paying off debts, electricity bills, hunger, a new kitchen, etc. etc.. That’s why selling isn’t considered an indication of the company’s situation with quite the same intensity. Of course, it’s also possible that this doctor received insider info from Juho in the floorball team’s sauna, but at least on my list, that’s a very low-probability reason for the sale.
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Yeah, you’re right. But I didn’t write that every BULL signal must be matched by one equally strong BEAR signal. I accept the rest and agree. Since we don’t know what the reasons for Koivunen’s buy and sell decisions were.
Then it can be stated that because we don’t know the trigger for either action, the sale or the buy, no signal can be constructed from Koivunen’s trades at all.
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