January 13, 2015
By Riley McDermid, BioSpace.com Breaking News Sr. Editor
Valeant shareholders should expect “small and medium sized transactions” in 2015, said Chief Financial Officer Howard Schiller at the J.P. Morgan Healthcare Conference in San Francisco on Tuesday.
Valeant made the announcement at the J.P. Morgan Healthcare Conference which began Monday in San Francisco and is the oldest and largest conference of its type. It includes 300 of the largest biotech, healthcare and biopharma companies presenting their top-line data and estimates to 4,000 of eager bankers, analysts, institutional investors, hedge funds and journalists.
Valeant is known as a serial acquirer, having made 60 acquisitions in six years, including its most recent deal to buy eye care company Bausch & Lomb for $8.7 billion.
Valeant has previously said it aims to be one top five pharma companies by the end of 2016, which means it would need to have a market cap of $150 billion, a difficult task as its debt continues to balloon . Right now, Valeant has $17 billion in debt on its books from $4.9 billion in 2012, a huge leap from $2.6 billion in 2008, when CEO Michael Pearson joined the company.
The company told analysts during a fourth quarter call last year that they hope to keep the deal making up.
“We can’t predict the path that will get us to the $150 billion, per se. But we find it’s very helpful to set a structure of aspiration,” an executive said at the time. “It’s something that we’ve done every year, and it gives our investors a sense of where we’re trying to go. And unless you aim high, you don’t achieve high.”
