Having lost a court battle intended to stall the aggressive proceedings of Valeant Pharmaceuticals Intl Inc (NYSE:VRX), Allergan Inc (NYSE:AGN) finally released the date for special meeting of shareholders as being December 18th, 2014. This date is a fall-out of decision of legal law-suit that went against Allergan Inc (NYSE:AGN) and in favor of Valeant Pharmaceuticals Intl Inc (NYSE:VRX), thus forcing the former to set a date within a period of 120 days which would come to an end on December 20th, 2014.
Origin of this decision can be traced to April this year when Valeant Pharmaceuticals Intl Inc (NYSE:VRX) joined hands with William Ackman to take over Allergan Inc (NYSE:AGN), a manufacturer of medical gadgets and pharmaceutical products including Botox, for $54 billion. Allergan has been opposed to the deal owing to what it considers to be an inadequate offer and has since been fighting for its independence. Amongst the various strategies that it has employed, the most forceful are accusing Valeant and Ackman of indulging in illegal tactics to acquire its shares and approaching a Federal Judge David Carter to deliver a fast-track decision in its favor.
However, with both attempts having failed, Allergen Inc (NYSE:AGN) has been left with no choice but to call for a special meeting within 120 days wherein its fate of shareholders and future organizational authority will be decided. Prior to that it has called for another meeting on September 4th – this is meant to serve as a precursor to question the validity of the decisive date as also its conformity to the law.
As per rules, Valeant Pharmaceuticals Intl Inc (NYSE:VRX) and Ackman combined need to cross a threshold of 25% of Allergen Inc (NYSE:AGN)’s shares in order to be able to take over the business. While they had expected to cross this figure by mid-August, an obstacle presented itself in form of some shareholders declining to relinquish their shares before the upcoming meeting of September 4th. Meanwhile the company has also revealed its intention of making a major acquisition, thus claiming that it would be too large even for a big partnership like Valeant-Ackman to swallow.
In light of this strife, share values of both companies have dropped wherein Allergen Inc (NYSE:AGN)’s is poised at $164.31 after a marginal increase and that of Valeant Pharmaceuticals Intl Inc (NYSE VRX) stands at $116.31 after having dropped by 0.8%.
This article has been written by Vinita Basu.
