ON THE SPOT:
Ascendis fit, flush and healthy, says CEO Karsten Wellner
Business Day asks CEO Karsten Wellner why he is pitching a rights offer at a premium
Shares in Ascendis Health have perked up since Wednesday’s news that it will raise R750m from the market — but at a premium, rather than the usual discount. It’s some comfort to investors in the acquisitive pharmaceutical company — including this writer — who enjoyed a big rally in 2016, only to see the share tumble to its present R18.50. Business Day asked CEO Karsten Wellner why he was pitching a rights offer at a premium. The current share price doesn’t reflect the value in our business – our major shareholder, Coast2Coast, knows that and that’s the reason they want to increase their shareholding, and they can’t get this if we do a rights issue on a discount. It sounds strange but it’s also strange that our share price has been dropping when we’ve reported very good numbers at the full year. Even if you take dilution into account, our normalised FY HEPS [full-year headline earnings per share] grew 29%. On our roadshow we got feedback from the market that they were concerned about...
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