A Macquarie analyst says that Aspen Pharmacare might walk out from its $700 million acquisition bid for distressed Sigma Pharmaceuticals.

This morning, Analyst Steve Wheen demoted Sigma to not perform satisfactorily from neutral after yesterday's news reports that its generics business has not performed well and EBIT was now anticipated to be $6.4 million under budget.

He said that whether this latest relegate will need an additional writedown of goodwill to the Arrow business, presently $444m of goodwill is still to be watched over.

Sigma reported a $389m loss for the year that concluded January 31 that comprised an intense goodwill mutilation of $424million.

On the South African opponent, Aspen's 60c-a-share proffer for Sigma, Wheen said, that growingly, they are of the viewpoint that Aspen might walk away from this deal, placing Sigma back in the control of its banks.

This is in contrast with Citi Analyst, Alex Smith, who maintained his view that the deal would move forward and his purchase suggestion subsequent to last week's selection of ex-Chief Financial Officer, Mark Hooper as Sigma Chief.

He said, "The ongoing poor performance outlined at the AGM is unlikely to surprise Aspen who is presumably interested in Sigma for the turn-around opportunity it presents, and potential to extract meaningful synergies".