COMPANY COMMENT
Why market continues to be wary of Ascendis
It is not clear how many shares Gary Shayne, and by extension Coast2Coast, will still have to offload to meet its obligations
If Ascendis shareholders were hoping for a short-term fillip from the resignation of nonexecutive director Gary Shayne, it has yet to materialise. Shares in the pharmaceutical group sank to a record low on Monday, of R3.05, before recovering somewhat to close at R3.40. As of Monday, Shayne was no longer a board member of the company he helped to create under his and Cris Dillon’s private equity outfit, Coast2Coast. That means Ascendis will no longer have to disclose his share sales, which he has been forced into after using Ascendis stock as collateral in raising funding to support the group. As Ascendis’s largest investor, Coast2Coast was the only real supporter of the company's 2017 rights offer which, at R20, was pitched at a premium to the then share price. It raised R750m million from the sale. That was a far cry from Ascendis's first cash call of 2016, which was more than 3 three times oversubscribed and which raised R1.2bn billion for the company. But by 2017, it was clear th...
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