A6 The BulleTin • SaTurday, July 24, 2021
Stocks
Continued from A5
“With roughly 87% of com-
panies beating earnings esti-
mates so far this month, inves-
tors continue to have reason for
optimism which is supported
by the low rates in the bond
market,” Wayne Wicker, chief
investment officer at Vantage-
point Funds, said in an email to
The Washington Post.
“And despite concerns early
in the week regarding the Delta
variant, I believe that investors
are beginning to recognize that
this issue will probably not have
the same impact on the econ-
omy as we saw last year given
that almost 70% of the U.S. pop-
ulation over 18 have at least one
vaccine shot which should pro-
vide for better health outcomes
than this time last year,” he said.
U.S. stocks, which cratered in
the early day of the pandemic,
IPO
Continued from A5
The stock will list under the
ticker symbol “ABSI,” but it
hadn’t actually begun trading
on the exchange by midmorn-
ing Thursday. That’s typical
with new IPOs, but makes it
impossible to gauge how inves-
tors are reacting to the offering.
The company has raised
$230 million already and made
two small acquisitions earlier
this year to round out its tech-
nology. Backers include Merck,
which put $5 million into Ab-
sci last year and is working
with the Vancouver company
on a drug candidate.
Absci’s operations remain
small though; it recorded less
than $5 million in sales last
year and has only about 170
employees. Absci has drug can-
didates in nine programs with
other manufacturers that could
generate fees or, eventually,
royalties, but no assurance that
those medications will ever hit
market.
Thursday’s IPO is a land-
mark in the Portland region,
which has never had a bio-
tech company make this big a
splash on Wall Street.
have been on a tear. The Dow
has swelled 32% since last year,
while the S&P 500 and Nasdaq
have shot up 37% and 43%, re-
spectively.
The enthusiasm comes even
as the delta variant flashes
warning signals that the coro-
navirus pandemic is far from
over. Caseloads are soaring in
some Asian countries, trigger-
ing new rounds of travel re-
strictions. The United States is
grappling with fast-spreading
outbreaks across the South and
Midwest, in states with low vac-
cination rates, where hospital
officials there say they are reel-
ing from a surge of patients.
Unease over the recovery’s
health has deepened after weekly
unemployment gains logged
their third uptick in six weeks,
spiking to 419,000, the Labor
Department reported Thursday.
The delta variant now makes
up more than 83% of cases cir-
culating in the United States,
according to the Centers for
Disease Control and Preven-
tion. People infected with the
variant appear to carry a viral
load that is more than 1,000
times that of those infected
with earlier forms of the virus,
allowing the virus to spread
rapidly among unvaccinated
people, scientists have found.
“While the markets were cer-
tainly shaken early in the week
by the prospects of the delta
variant affecting the pace of the
economic recovery, investors
have turned their attention to
an exceptionally strong earn-
ings season and resilient profit
margins across the board, as-
suaging fears that while the
emergence of new variants may
slow the recovery, they likely
won’t derail it,” said Nicole
Richard Drew/AP
Tanenbaum, chief investment
strategist at Chequers Financial Trader Peter Tuchman wears a “Dow $35,000” hat on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange to mark the
Management.
Dow Jones Industrial Average closing Friday at 35,061.55.
Portland online learning company raises $50M
Portland online education portal OpenSesame reported $50 mil-
lion in new funding Thursday, buoyed by interest in new workforce
training options during the remote working era.
Privately held OpenSesame had previously disclosed $47 million
in outside investment, most recently in a $28 million round two years
ago, so it’s now raised nearly $100 million. That puts it among the
best-funded young companies in Portland tech.
OpenSesame said it will use the latest infusion to expand through
acquisitions and new products.
The company employs 173, about two thirds of them in Portland,
up from 70 at the time of its last investment in 2019. OpenSesame
said it expects to have a staff of 200 by the end of the year and 700 by
2025, with employees increasingly distributed around the globe.
“We plan to build the world’s leader in online business training. We
plan to build a multibillion-dollar business,” CEO Don Spear said in an
interview Thursday.
Founded in 2011, OpenSesame runs a market of 20,000 online
training courses on everything from cybersecurity to forklift safety to
diversity and inclusion. Employers assign their staff to take the online
courses to develop proficiency in professional skills or other subjects
they need to know.
— The Oregonian
“We realized that we could
raise capital here in the region
as well as recruit top talent, so
we decided to stay and grow
here in the region,” McClain
said. He pointed to Twist Bio-
science, a San Francisco com-
pany in the process of substan-
tially expanding its Wilsonville
lab, an indication that Absci’s
early success portends further
growth in the region’s life sci-
ence industry.
Absci stands to generate tens
of millions of dollars for local
investors who provided early
backing, some of which may be
reinvested in other startups.
“I think it’ll have a catalytic
effect,” said Eric Rosenfeld, co-
founder of the Oregon Venture
Fund, which invested $4 mil-
lion in Absci over six difference
rounds beginning in 2016.
That now constitutes a 3.6%
stake in the business, worth
nearly $72 million after Thurs-
day’s IPO.
“It’s huge for us as a fund.
The return is ginormous for
us,” Rosenfeld said. “It’ll be
huge for us and puts some
wind in the sales for life science
investing in our region.”
After growing out of its
Portland lab space, Absci was
unable to find a larger facil-
ity in the region. McClain said
that Washington Gov. Jay In-
slee stepped in to help fund
the creation of a suitable lab in
downtown Vancouver. Absci
has subsequently moved to a
larger office in east Vancouver.
IPOs are rare in the Portland
area, and there have been no
large public offerings by Or-
egon companies since 2004.
Absci’s, though, is the third in
Clark County in recent years.
Laser manufacturer nLight
raised about $90 million with
its 2018 IPO, and marketing
data provider ZoomInfo raised
more than $900 million when
it went public last year.
Shortage
Continued from A5
According to a report from
the Oregon Employment
Department, nearly 40% of
the Oregon labor force has
children at home, and with
the inability to find adequate
child care, that has left 17%,
or roughly 350,000 workers,
in a bind.
Lack of housing is an-
other problem. La Grande
High School Assistant Prin-
cipal Eric Freeman recently
said the school lined up a
prospective teacher, but the
applicant turned down the
offer after failing to find
housing.
Some economists say that
labor shortages are sim-
ply wage shortages. This
led Mitch Meyers, owner of
Nookie’s, to offer incentives
to prospective employees.
“I’m having to pay a $1,000
hiring bonus to 17-year-old
kids, who don’t even have
a driver’s license, with no
work experience, and paying
$18.50 an hour,” he said. “And
you know what happens? You
hire them, they work one day
and quit.”
Structural changes
McConnell said he believes
the pandemic caused a great
structural shift in the economy
that pulled workers out of the
labor force entirely, though
data on this remains scarce.
“My hunch is that the ma-
jority of (those who are unem-
ployed) have structural adjust-
ment issues,” said McConnell,
“such as child care availability.
Many of them may also be
unwilling to lose Medicare
benefits. By moving back into
the workforce, they will lose
access to care. This economic
crisis is highlighted by the
significant lack of affordable
health coverage”
McConnell also said the
federal unemployment ben-
efits kicker amounts to $2.7
million in Union County
alone between July 1 and
early September, when the
benefits are expected to end.
But ending them early, he
said, would be a mistake.
“You may add more incen-
tive to look for work,” he said.
“But in the meantime, you’re
actually going to take a lot
of money out of the system,
which may actually depress
the economy.”
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