Greg Goodman of Goodman Group launched the mother of all capital raises in the third week of February. He hired three brokers – Morgan Stanley, JPMorgan and RBC – to sell $4 billion of new stock to fund its spending spree on data centres.

Diluting existing shareholders to this extent is no small thing even for what was then a $70 billion market cap firm. To lure institutional investors on February 19, Goodman offered shares at $33.50 – a 6.8 per cent discount to the previous close.