On Tuesday, the Canadian company’s US listed shares dropped 10 percent to $10.50, their lowest since May 2009, and a fraction of the near $190 a share Ackman’s Pershing Square Capital Management paid for them in early 2015. Neither Ackman nor Pershing Square’s vice chairman will seek re-election to Valeant’s board.
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Additionally, Valeant Pharmaceuticals has started looking to asset sales as a way to relieve its debt burden, and Valeant Pharmaceuticals had told that the company could sell about $8 billion in non-core assets. In November, charges were announced for a former Valeant executive and a former CEO of Philidor.
The sale ends a near three-year saga that first saw Ackman team up with Valeant in a hostile bid for a rival, before later making a direct investment.
Still, Wall Street was stunned when Ackman pulled his stake in Valeant late Monday, as previously he had insisted that Pershing remained committed to a turnaround at Valeant. Ackman acquired millions of shares of Allergan before Valeant made its attempt to acquire that company.
This bond is large enough that it is reasonably liquid – lately it has been trading actively in round lots ($1 million or more).
Despite the losses, Ackman’s announcement said that he and Fraidin had helped shake up the company’s leadership, plan a strategy to sell the drugmaker’s non-core assets and taken other steps “to stabilize Valeant and position it for the future”.
The investment in Valeant accounted for just 1.5 to 3.0 percent of the value of Pershing’s funds, but “required a disproportionately large amount of time and resources”, the firm said in a statement.
The activist investor’s decision to sell his stake in Valeant was a stark reversal, and it sparked jitters among investors.
“At Valeant right now, it is all about divestitures”, said Umer Raffat, an analyst at Evercore ISI.
Considering the performance, Valeant Pharmaceuticals International, Inc.
Valeant started out a small USA -based firm with McKinsey & Co veteran Mike Pearson at its helm.
Several hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently added to or reduced their stakes in the stock. For the quarter, shares have been noted at -21.57%.
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“Valeant Pharmaceuticals Intl Inc (VRX) Given a $12.00 Price Target at Canaccord Genuity” was reported by BBNS and is the property of of BBNS. And while certain entities-a purveyor of diet shakes and supplements called Herbalife-continue to hold Ackman’s attention despite overwhelming evidence he should cut his (massive) losses and run, Valeant is no longer one of them. For a brief period in 2015, it was the most valuable company in Canada, growing through a series of massive mergers.
