A Singapore-based healthcare provider learned the hard way that Wall Street is still wary of corporate Bitcoin treasuries.
Share Price Slides on Bold Plan
Basel Medical Group saw its shares sink roughly 15 percent after revealing “advanced discussions” to acquire $1 billion in Bitcoin through a share-swap deal with institutional investors.
Management pitched the move as a way to build “one of the strongest balance sheets among Asia-focused healthcare providers” and to secure “unmatched financial flexibility for mergers and acquisitions.”
Treasury Strategy Aims to Diversify
The company added that a BTC reserve would help it “[e]stablish a diversified asset base to weather market volatility.”
Yet investors balked, sending the BMGL ticker sharply lower, according to intraday Google Finance data.
M&A Ambitions and Recent Deals
The Bitcoin gambit follows Basel’s acquisition of Bethesda Medical in April, described as “the beginning of Basel Medical Group’s expansion strategy in Singapore and the broader Southeast Asian healthcare market.”
Chief Executive Darren Chhoa argued, “Our expanded balance sheet will allow us to move quickly on strategic opportunities as we build a premier healthcare platform across high-growth Asian markets.”
Market Skepticism Mirrors Earlier Episodes
Shareholder pushback is not unique.
GameStop lost close to $3 billion in value in March after hinting at a similar pivot.
“There are question marks with GameStop’s model. If bitcoin is going to be the pivot, where does that leave everything else?” eToro analyst Bret Kenwell told Reuters at the time.
Bigger Picture for Corporate Treasuries
Roughly $80 billion in Bitcoin now sits on public company balance sheets, according to BitcoinTreasuries.NET.
A 2024 Fidelity Digital Assets report argues the asset can “potentially be a valuable hedge against growing fiscal deficits, currency debasement, and geopolitical risks” for corporations.
Still, Basel’s experience shows that the market will not automatically reward every firm that embraces a crypto balance-sheet strategy.
Outlook
If the share-swap proceeds, Basel could become one of Asia’s largest non-financial corporate holders of Bitcoin, joining a list topped by U.S. names such as MicroStrategy.
Short-term volatility, however, may persist as investors debate whether a healthcare company should tie so much capital to a highly volatile asset.