Doctors sometimes ask: who’s been making that racket in the waiting room, with all this endless howling? And, at last, we have an answer. It’s only KKR, Stonepeak, Jefferies and their legal pals from Simpson Thacher & Bartlett — all crying wolf.

Who they? The two bidders and their advisers, who teamed up to offer £1.7 billion cash for Assura — only to find themselves gazumped by a cash-and-shares bid from Primary Health Properties.

It was a summer set-to that took the temperature of the London market: a cash-out from two financial buyers versus the chance to create a bigger healthcare real estate investment trust, with £6 billion of properties housing more than 1,000 doctors’ surgeries and private hospitals.

Shareholders sensibly plumped for PHP, rightly concluding that it was daft to cash out of a sector with so much political oomph behind it: £29 billion a year extra for the NHS, plus a ten-year government plan to ease pressure on our hospitals via a shift to primary care. What better boost than that to the value of buildings housing GP surgeries, not least when the rents are effectively underwritten by the taxpayer?

Still, with the upfront financial difference between the bids slim, it was touch and go: an issue exacerbated by a chorus from the KKR/Stonepeak crew that Assura investors would be in need of heart surgery once the wonks from the Competition & Markets Authority had got their scalpels into PHP’s bid.

The PHP boss, Mark Davies, had taken a calculated risk not to make the offer “conditional” on CMA approval. He expected scrutiny, of course, but reasoned that neither Assura nor PHP set their own rents — they’re mainly done by a division of the HMRC’s Valuation Office Agency. So, even if he grew the size of the estate, PHP would not be able to charge rip-off rents.

Maybe KKR and Stonepeak knew that, too. But that didn’t stop them stirring things up over competition risk, including taking the unusual step of issuing two inflammatory stock exchange missives.

The first, in May, detailed the risks of a Phase 2 inquiry and how, under the “Enterprise Act 2002”, the CMA could “prevent” PHP acquiring shares in Assura. That, the duo warned, could leave Assura’s “share price and valuation … materially negatively affected”. Did Assura investors realise PHP was asking them “to bear this risk”?

It was the second, though, that was particularly priceless. Despite endless claims that the CMA could force disposals and other remedies on PHP, investors had made it clear they preferred its bid.

So, in August, on the eve of the deadline for acceptances, the duo and their key banking adviser — Philip Noblet of Jefferies — made a desperate, last-ditch attempt to keep their bid and his bonus alive. They issued a statement disingenuously titled “Update following discussions with Assura plc board” that was not only a blatant try-on but one so misleading that the Takeover Panel insisted on three corrections. This time they warned that the CMA had served “an initial enforcement order” on PHP — despite that move being utterly routine.

Anyway, you ask, what happened? Well, PHP won the bid and the CMA has just “cleared” it. As Davies pointed out, it found “no competition concerns” whatsoever: news that pushed up PHP shares by 1 per cent to 94¾p, with the group now free to integrate Assura, aiming for at least £9 million of annual synergies. As for the KKR bid team and Jefferies, they sheepishly declined to comment. Look out for them next time they cry wolf.

GSK’s health check

Some drugs take a long time to work. Dame Emma Walmsley, the GSK boss, has just delivered her farewell figures. And guess what? The shares marked the occasion by closing up 6.5 per cent at £17.52. Or just 76p higher than where they stood before she took charge in April 2017.

Put like that, the market’s been tough on Walmsley. Her swansong third quarter had a familiar feel: upgrades to sales and profits guidance, with revenues up 7 per cent to £8.5 billion and double-digit increases across the board, whether in HIV, respiratory, oncology, shingles or RSV drugs. On top, the pipeline’s seen four new product approvals so far this year, not least Blenrep for multiple myeloma.

• GSK’s Emma Walmsley bows out on a high

Still, the key challenge for her successor, Luke Miels, is clear. Despite signs that the market is starting to have a bit more faith in GSK, it’s still sceptical it can deliver its target £40 billion sales by 2031. And not least with HIV medicine dolutegravir coming off patent from 2028, costing up to £3 billion sales a year. Still, Walmsley has provided a bit of context. When she rebuffed the hedge fund Elliott in 2021, pledging a “step-change in growth”, she initially forecast £33 billion sales by 2031: a figure analysts make a banker for next year at the latest. So, is £40 billion such a long shot?

Miels must start with a successful Blenrep launch and keep the forecast-beating figures coming. Do that and the market may eventually decide he can pass his drugs test.

Nvidia has the floor

Chipping in for Donald Trump’s $300 million ballroom looks a steal. The Nvidia boss Jensen Huang said he was “incredibly proud and delighted” to have stumped up. And look what’s already happened — Nvidia is now the world’s first $5 trillion group, with the shares lifted by Trump saying that he’ll discuss its Blackwell chip with China’s leader Xi Jinping.

True, other stuff may have helped: an order backlog for $500 billion of chips for all those circular deals from robotworld. Still, what better metaphor than a new ballroom for this whirligig of AI value creation — at least until the music stops.