Changing fortunes: is Biotech giant CSL’s $10 billion write-down a comeback story?

August 18, 2026 — 3:51pm

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Rarely has an Australian company booked a writedown of the magnitude of biotechnology giant CSL’s $10 billion. It is almost as extraordinary to see the share price of a company the size of CSL – $74.2 billion – leap by more than 16 per cent in an hour. Both happened on Tuesday.

History tells that only BHP and Rio have had bigger writedowns than CSL – the former thanks to a disastrous foray into US shale assets, the latter thanks to its ill-conceived takeover of Canadian aluminium producer Alcan.

In all three cases, the companies succumbed to the folly of hubris and wildly overpaid for a business, only to feel the time-delayed sting of buyer’s remorse and shareholder anger.

The achilles heel for CSL has been the 2022 acquisition of specialty pharmaceutical firm........

© Brisbane Times