As soon as a listed company is caught chasing down a big target, life gets much harder. Analysts run numbers on equity raisings, bankers and hedge funds get excited, quiet investors get vocal, and pressure builds. Everything can quickly spiral out of control.Chemist Warehouse owner Sigma Healthcare, caught doing the unimaginable and sniffing around the UK’s Boots, is stuck in the market’s crocodile roll: Macquarie analysts say it could have to raise $6.5 billion equity (about equivalent to a one-for-four rights issue), JPMorgan is imploring it to walk away and stick to rolling out its own UK stores, and the stock dropped another 2.4 per cent on Thursday to be down 10 per cent since the big news broke.Subscribe to gift this articleGift 5 articles to anyone you choose each month when you subscribe.Subscribe nowAlready a subscriber? Fetching latest articles
Chemist Warehouse gets the crocodile roll treatment
The pharmacy giant’s hunt for a global prize could lead it to rapidly lose control of the situation and become trapped in the notorious graveyard of failed offshore M&A.
140 words~1 min read
