To be clear, I am not an advocate of aggressive...

To be clear, I am not an advocate of aggressive acquisition-driven growth either, quite the opposite in fact. But the point here is, if the 200m$ acquisition pipeline does not materialise, that is going to significantly affect GEM’s valuation. On a forecast CY17 basis, the company is trading at an EV/EBIT of 11x, or a FCF yield of 6.35%, which is OK for this type of business, but no longer unambiguously “cheap”.

So, either they get “back on track”, or their investment rationale will have to be reassessed. And, regarding the issuance of new equity to buy back debt, it is something I personally never like to see from a company I own; if you see value in your own stock, you’d rather issue new debt to buy back shares, doing it the other way around hardly conveys a bullish message.