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| Valeant CEO J. Michael Pearson |
J. Michael Pearson is one ambitious man. The Valeant ($VRX) CEO regularly announces big goals for his Canada-based drugmaker. After building Valeant past $5 billion, one deal at a time, last January Pearson said he's aiming for $20 billion in revenue, more than 5 times its sales in 2012.
And now, Pearson wants to elbow his way to the top echelons of the drug business. If he has his way, Valeant will be one of the top 5 drugmakers in the world. By 2016.
That gives Pearson three years to push Valeant's current market cap of $38.4 billion to the requisite $150 bilion or more, Reuters reports. And that will require some significant growth in Valeant's top and bottom lines.
In 2012, Valeant turned in $3.4 billion in sales. For 2013, Pearson's forecast was almost $5 billion. In unveilng 2014 guidance today, Pearson said revenue would hit $8.2 to $8.6 billion--only a billion and a half from his $10 billion goal.
Of course, Valeant didn't achieve that big leap organically. The company made its biggest deal ever last year, with the purchase of Bausch & Lomb for $8.7 billion. To pump up market cap to top-5 levels, Pearson will have to make more deals, and he knows it. Right now, the company reportedly is looking at a "merger of equals," and that could take Valeant close to $20 billion.
"Unless you aim high, you don't achieve high," Pearson said during today's conference call. "How we get there, we can't say at this time."
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