COMPANY COMMENT
Share price fall at Ascendis a bitter pill to swallow
Since August the company’s stock has more than halved
Shareholders in healthcare conglomerate Ascendis must be feeling rather queasy at this point. Since August the share price has more than halved — which, at the time of writing, was a new all-time low for Ascendis. In the year to date, Ascendis has shed more than 60% of its value and now looks nothing like the market darling whose acquisitive exploits helped to drive the share price to as high as R28 in late 2016. Like so many other growth-by-acquisition counters, the centre simply did not hold as firmly as expected when operational strains increased. But the pale share price probably affords brave investors an opportunity to back a turnaround effort in its early stages. Normalised earnings for the year to end-June were reflected as R738m compared with Thursday’s market capitalisation of just over R3bn. Ascendis has already signalled an intention to simplify its breadth and scale in areas where it has a sustainable competitive advantage. This might not be a quick fix, though. Presum...
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