Just days before the SHAC global week of action kicked off and two weeks after Huntingdon Life Sciences’ vivisection laboratories were exposed for the seventh time in ten years, revealing shocking undercover footage, HLS shareholders have sold 15% of the company (ticker symbol LSR). As a result the percentage of LSR stock held by institutions fell further from 20.1% to 17.7%, leaving them below the minimum listing standards of the New York Stock Exchange, a major target in the campaign to close down HLS.

Wells Fargo, who were one of LSR’s top five institutional investors has sold all their 147,511 shares and the Bank of New York Mellon, previously third largest investor, sold most of their LSR stock dumping 149,157 shares. BNY Mellon now only have 26,634 remaining of the original 175,791 shares, with Turner Investment Partners Inc also selling their 56,880 stock.

The announcement was made the day before Animal Liberation Front (ALF) activists reported they had slashed car tryes at the home of BNY’s Business Analyst in Hampshire, whilst other covert cells targeted HLS associates in solidarity with political prisoners, including the UK SHAC 7. Protests also took place at BNY and Wells Fargo’s offices and executive’s homes, as part of a three-month campaign based primarily in London ( 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 ) (England) and New York City (USA) ( 1 | 2 ).

HLS have been suffering from a serious lack of investment since December 2007, with over a dozen corporations selling all their shares in LSR. Their share price as of February 25th is $5.78, the lowest since their high of nearly $40 in September 2008. With an unstable share price, activists continue to increase the pressure against HLS shareholders, particularly largest investor Barclays.

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SHAC 7 Letters from Prison: 1 | 2 | 3 | More

Huntingdon Life Sciences (HLS) are in the business of poisoning healthy animals to death. They are a contract testing operation that tests products for others. They have three sites two in the UK and one in the US. Five hundred animals are put to death every day by HLS, killing tens of thousands of horses, cats, dogs, primates, rabbits, hamsters, rats, mice and fish amongst others each year.

Stop Huntingdon Animal Cruelty (SHAC) was set with the sole aim of closing HLS down. The campaign was set up at the end of 1999 by a group of activists who had successfully closed down Consort kennels and Hillgrove cat farm. Both campaigns ended with the businesses closing down and hundreds of animals being safely rehomed instead of tortured in labs.

Shareholders, stockbrokers, market makers, suppliers and clients have all dumped HLS, including the world’s largest companies; all four main high street banks in the UK, the world’s largest financial institution, the world’s second largest bank and the world’s largest insurance broker. Huntingdon are $83 million dollars in debt with NO commercial bank and insurance company anywhere in the world prepared to deal with them.

“By means of a well thought-out strategy and extremely effective campaigning methods, SHAC has decimated a once powerful vivisection company and trepidation has been spread throughout the vivisection industry as a whole.” – Ronnie Lee, founder of the Animal Liberation Front

HLS’ key weakness is their finances and by throwing the spotlight on those funding their abuse campaigners across the globe have managed to bring HLS to the brink of financial collapse. Throughout the campaign activists have made financial history as one by one major corporations have yielded to protester power and severed their links with the failing company.

Campaigners use evidence obtained in seven undercover investigations at their different laboratories in the UK and USA where HLS workers have been caught on film punching puppies in the face, simulating sex with animals in their care, cutting open primates while they are still alive and falsifying experiments to get products on the market. HLS workers have even been caught drunk at work and dealing drugs at the labs.

Huntingdon Life Sciences have a criminal record from a British court of law for breaking the Companies’ Act. They are the only UK laboratory to ever have their license revoked by the government.

Previous features: HLS Exposed – Yet Again! SHAC To Shakedown Financial Investors In The City | 50 Years For The UK SHAC 7 | Anti-vivisection campaigners convicted of blackmail | Largest HLS Investor Dumps All Shares | SHAC Prepares For National March & Rally | Victory for animal rights campaigners | Activist Imprisoned for Shouting | Fisher Scientific Embarrassed Over Links with HLS | SHAC World Day for Lab Animals | Asahi Glass Protesters Harassed by Police | “March Against the Murderers”

Links: SHAC | Win Animal Rights | Animal Liberation Front | SHAC Prisoner Support | Indymedia UK SHAC topic pages