Valeant shares close up 10.02%
Analyst says ‘stock could be on the verge of a significant inflection point’
These days no news from Valeant is good news, and on Tuesday that’s exactly what investors got.
Valeant Pharmaceuticals International Inc. stock saw a doubledigit surge after the company’s ad-hoc committee announced it had not identified any additional items that need restating following its review of the controversial Philidor specialty pharmacy.
“After conducting more than 70 interviews and reviewing over one million documents, the ad-hoc committee has not identified any additional items requiring restatements beyond those matters previously disclosed,” Robert Ingram, chairman of the board and chair of the ad-hoc committee, said in a statement.
“We believe it is appropriate to transfer responsibility for any continuing work to the board’s independent directors.”
Shares leaped 13 per cent in premarket trading Tuesday in Toronto before closing at $37.77, up $3.44 or 10.02 per cent on the day.
The ad-hoc committee was formed in October 2015 to investigate Valeant’s relationship with the Philidor Rx Services LLC mailorder pharmacy after a short seller, Andrew Left of Citron Research, published reports accusing the Laval, Que.-based drugmaker of using Philidor to inflate sales.
Valeant eventually revealed it paid US$100 million for an option to buy Philidor for nothing at any time during the next 10 years and consolidated the specialty pharmacy’s financial results into its own.
In late February the committee announced its review found about US$58 million of sales to Philidor were recognized at the wrong time.
Valeant said it would restate financial results from 2014 and 2015 — including the 10-K annual report needed by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission — by April 29.
The company risks a technical default on its US$31 billion of long-term debt if the 2015 annual report is not filed by this time and has blamed its former CFO and interim CEO Howard Schiller for the incorrect information.
Alex Arfaei, an analyst at BMO Capital Markets, said filing the overdue report could be a turning point if Valeant’s revisions are similar to those disclosed so far.
“The stock could be on the verge of a significant inflection point,” said Arfaei in a note to clients.
Arfaei said he believes the Valeant stock is undervalued based on underlying fundamentals and sets a target price of $66 per share.
“We expect the stock to appreciate throughout April, and believe that the 10-K filing itself could be a significant catalyst,” said Arfaei.
Although this is a step in the right direction for Valeant after an 85 per cent stock drop in the past year, the company isn’t out of the woods just yet, said Gimme Credit analyst Vicki Bryan.
Valeant still needs its auditors, the multinational PricewaterhouseCoopers, to sign off before it can issue its reports, and both companies have declined to comment on the progress.
“I suspect they’ve completed their work for some time and what’s going on is that there could be some disputes over what the auditors want to say and what Valeant wants to say,” Bryan said.
“Until the auditors are happy ( Valeant) can’t really say when they’re going to file.”
Valeant also said it believes that with the restatement it will be in compliance with its debt agreements.