It's out with the old CEO, in with the new as Endo's Campanelli takes De Silva's seat

By Carly Helfand Sep 23, 2016 9:07am

Endo ($ENDP) has struggled lately to right the ship, and now it’s giving a new skipper a turn at the wheel.

Paul Campanelli, the former CEO of Par Pharmaceutical--which Endo bought last year--will take over for departing helmsman Rajiv De Silva, who has vacated his post to pursue new professional opportunities, De Silva said in a statement. The switch is effective immediately, and Campanelli will also step into De Silva’s open seat on the company’s board of directors.

Campanelli hasn’t just been sitting around since Endo’s Par buy put him out of his chief exec job. He’s currently the president of Endo’s generic and OTC business, which generated 60% of the Dublin drugmaker’s total revenue through the first half of this year. And as Endo moves to “focus on execution and increasing the value of our attractive U.S. branded, U.S. generic and international pharmaceutical assets,” the company’s board has decided Campanelli is “the right leader for Endo at this juncture,” Chairman Roger Kimmel said in a statement.

It’s a new dawn for Endo, which has probably seen more comparisons with embattled peer Valeant ($VRX) lately than it would like. De Silva, who previously served as the Canadian drugmaker’s COO under now-dismissed head honcho J. Michael Pearson, seemingly took a page from his senior’s playbook with a string of rapid-fire deals that included the Par pickup.

But Endo’s also followed some Valeant acts lately that it would likely rather forget--including a Q2 guidance-slashing that decimated shares. In Endo’s case, a May downward spiral of nearly 40% marked the stock’s second-worse daily performance ever, thanks to an adjusted revenue projection that hit well below analyst expectations.

More recently, Endo reportedly held talks with private equity firms about potential divestments that could help it pare down the $8 billion-plus debt mountain it racked up during its Valeant-esque deal spree. Valeant is currently in the middle of its own asset-sale process, which it hopes will drum up money to ease investors’ debt-default worries.

Now, though, it’ll be up to Campanelli to turn things around, and he’ll have his work cut out for him. Friday, Endo affirmed that its total third-quarter revenues would hit between $830 million and $870 million, with its full-year haul landing in the $3.87 billion to $4.03 billion range--the same range that spooked shareholders in Q2.

- read Endo's release

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