Street Talk

Chemist Warehouse’s $34b debut has bulge-bracket banks licking their wounds

Sarah Thompson, Kanika Sood and Emma Rapaport

Feb 13, 2025 – 8.01pm

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It’s the largest addition to the ASX boards ever. But Chemist Warehouse’s $34 billion public markets debut has also turned out to be a big disappointment for bulge-bracket investment banks’ bosses.

As the dust settled on the pharmacy giant’s first day as a publicly tradable entity, it was mid-tier stockbroker Morgans that had traded the lion’s share of the nearly $1 billion worth of Sigma shares that changed hands. Known to be close to the Di Pilla family, Morgans kept chipping away at small but numerous sell orders on behalf of Chemist Warehouse franchisees. It ended the day with a 28.6 per cent market share, according to Bloomberg.

Sarah Thompson has co-edited Street Talk since 2009, specialising in private equity, investment banking, M&A and equity capital markets stories. Prior to that, she spent 10 years in London as a markets and M&A reporter at Bloomberg and Dow Jones.

Kanika Sood is a journalist based in Sydney who writes for the Street Talk column.

Emma Rapaport is a co-editor of the Street Talk column. Prior to that, she was a markets reporter at The Australian Financial Review.