Aspen Pharmacare: About to be taken off the sick list?
The Aspen share is yet to recover from a fear-driven sell-off sparked by speculation that Aspen was the next target of Viceroy Research
Steinhoff’s accounting scandal has inflicted a fair amount of collateral damage on Aspen Pharmacare, the Durban-based company that’s built a global empire in the two decades since listing.Still 16%-held by CEO Stephen Saad and his deputy, Gus Attridge, Aspen makes its portfolio of mostly speciality products on six continents.But its aggressive offshore acquisition strategy and "very subjective" accounting treatment of intangible assets have brought unwanted attention from short sellers in recent months — keeping its shares on a losing streak.The share is yet to recover from a fear-driven sell-off sparked by speculation that Aspen was the next target — after Steinhoff — of Viceroy Research. It was trading at R258.90 at the time of writing — well below the highs of nearly R440 reached in 2015. But most analysts still rate it a "buy", Bloomberg data shows.Naturally, Aspen’s management team is bullish. Head of strategic trade Stavros Nicolaou says the drugmaker "is probably SA’s most gl...
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