The Wesfarmers Ltd (ASX: WES) share price had… an interesting September. Not that that was anything different to what the broader S&P/ASX 200 Index (ASX: XJO) experienced over the month that was. The ASX 200 ended up losing roughly 2.6% of its value over September.
But how did Wesfarmers do? After all, Wesfarmers is one of the bluest ASX 200 blue chips on the markets and is a major constituent of the ASX 200 itself.
So the Wesfarmers share price started the month off at $59.95 a share. It ended September at the price of $55.75. That means Wesfarmers shares went backwards by exactly 7% over the month.
That's a pretty large number for one month's efforts. Especially if you consider it's a loss almost 3 times greater than the ASX 200's. So what happened here?
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September rains on ASX 200 parade
Well, it's worth pointing out that Wesfarmers went ex-dividend for its upcoming final dividend payment on 1 September. Wesfarmers will be shelling out a final dividned of 90 cents per share, fully franked, on 8 October. When the company traded ex-dividend on 1 September, it gave the Wesfarmers share price more than just a pinch and a punch.
As we covered at the time, this initially sent Wesfarmers shares down as much as 3%. This is quite normal for a share trading ex-dividend with the value of the dividend leaving the share price as new investors aren't entitled to the payout. Even so, it still contributed to Wesfarmers' poor performance over the month.
Another factor that could have turned investors off Wesfarmers is the long-running battle to takeover Australian Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd (ASX: API). API is the company behind the Priceline chain of pharmacy stores.
Wesfarmers has lobbed more than one bid for API. Its most recent offer came in mid-September when the company offered up $1.55 for every API share on the market. It's previous offer was valued at $1.38.
However, we learned last month that Sigma Healthcare Ltd (ASX: SIG) had also thrown its hat into the ring, putting up an offer worth $1.57 a share. As it stands today, there is no sign who will end up winning the bidding war. Although Wesfarmers has yet to top the offer Sigma has on the table. Perhaps this dampened investor enthusiasm for Wesfarmers shares in the back half of September.
About the Wesfarmers share price
Although September was a tough month for Wesfarmers, the picture looks more pleasing if we zoom out a little. The company is still up 6.25% year to date in 2021 so far and is also up by close to 22% over the past year.
At yesterday's closing Wesfarmers share price, the company has a market capitalisation of $62.11 billion, a price-to-earnings (P/E) ratio of 26.06 and a dividend yield of 3.25%.
