James Thomson
speaker
2,279 appearances
7 recordings
2 series
first heard Apr 2026
last heard 12 Jun
James Thomson’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.
Trend
recordings per month · last 12 monthsRecordings per month over the last 12 months — 7 in all, peaking in May 2026 with 4.
Appearances
Investors are very nervous when acquisitions happen and a private equity firm is involved because the suspicion is that the private equity firm's dressed the business.
business up for sale.
It's made it look better than it might be actually trading.
It's papered over the cracks and then the new buyer comes in and it all falls apart.
So those are the two risks.
Now, against that is just how good the Chemist Warehouse guys are at retail.
Mario Verrocchi, he's the CEO of Chemist Warehouse working inside Sigma.
For a long time, he's looked at Boots as a sort of hero, as a model that Chemist Warehouse could follow, and now he's got a chance to buy the whole thing for $14 billion.
The problem is, Anthony, Boots has had five years of...
uncertainty over who's actually going to own this thing.
It's come off the boil.
Verratti even said last year himself that it looked like the model was past its best.
So look, if Chemist Warehouse is going to do this deal, it has to get a really good price, doesn't it?
Yeah, we'll see.
I mean, like you said, James, it's so easy to think about companies have come unstuck in the UK and Wesfarmers springs to mind.
I mean, the best thing about its one was it bought a business called Homebase in exactly the place that wasn't its home base in the UK.
It blew up.
The irony was gold.
But, you know, AMP, NAB, Slater and Gordon, Linker Administration Holdings, they just roll off the tongue, the bad examples in the UK.
Yeah, maybe Chemist Warehouse and its parent Sigma gets a bargain here and maybe they can whack some of that Chemist Warehouse magic.
Showing 81–100 of 2,279 · page 5 of 114
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