EDITOR’S VIEW
RON DERBY: Saad’s defence under pressure is straight from Musk’s playbook
Aspen’s expansion play has many questioning its strategy
I''d imagine one of the most tedious and tiring of jobs on the desk of any CEO of a listed entity is convincing the investment public of his or her views of the company and its prospects. When it's done well and everyone, and more importantly, analysts, are on the same page, it's a smooth ride and what normally follows is a rapidly rising share price as the company basks in the hope of future profits. The opposite is also true, when a CEO loses his investment community and the questions get just that bit more difficult to answer. Or the answers become just a bit too "high grade" for analysts to understand. In such cases, the share reacts, sometimes violently. Stephen Saad, the founding CEO of Aspen Pharmacare, has experienced both sides of the story. He was a beneficiary of market affection that knew no bounds about five years ago, when he was lauded by London's Financial Times and named on Forbes magazine's list of African billionaires as he rode the crest of a wave of stock that w...
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