The Big Take
Debt-Addicted Companies Look to Equity as Interest Costs Skyrocket
For the first time in over two decades, it’s cheaper to sell shares than issue debt. Will corporations take advantage?
Illustration: María Jesús Contreras
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For the better part of a decade, Bryan Riggsbee did what countless other finance chiefs, both in the US and beyond, had done when their companies needed money — he borrowed it.
Late last year, the chief financial officer at Myriad Genetics Inc. took a different tack, one the DNA-testing company hadn’t seriously considered in over 16 years — selling shares.