Valeant turned down Takeda-TPG takeover offer: WSJ

By Carly Helfand May 27, 2016 8:26am

Good news for Valeant investors worried the company won’t find takers for the parts of its business it wants to jettison: It’s already found a pair interested in picking up the entire company. The only thing is, it turned its suitors down.

The Canadian pharma received--and rejected--a joint takeover approach this spring from Takeda and private-equity firm TPG, The Wall Street Journal’s sources say. It came shortly before the drugmaker appointed new CEO Joseph Papa--after channel-stuffing allegations, debt-default worries and political pricing pushback had decimated shares by about 90%.

Valeant, though, wanted to give its new chief exec a chance to take the company in a different direction, the sources told the Journal.

The transaction would have made sense for GI-focused Takeda, which planned to take the business Valeant purchased from Salix Pharmaceuticals in 2015 and leave most of the rest for TPG. Salix’s portfolio includes blockbuster wannabe Xifaxan, which Takeda initially lost out on when Valeant emerged victorious from a bidding war for the North Carolina drugmaker.

Those talks are now off the table, though, the WSJ notes, and Valeant hasn’t received any other offers for the entire company, either. Still, though, the interest is reassuring as the Quebec-based company weighs which pieces to offer up for sale. In recent weeks, reports have listed Obagi Medical Products, laggard cancer vaccine Provenge and controversial heart meds Isuprel and Nitropress as assets Valeant may cast off, and earlier this year, board member Bill Ackman suggested that spinning off eyecare division Bausch & Lomb could generate cash to pay down debt.

- read the WSJ story (sub. req.)

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