lessons from VRX debacle for NPH...Be careful who you choose to be your financial partners!!! VRX chose Pershing Square led by Bill Akman... The problem was that he was despised by the majority of WallStreet influental... Most recently he took on Carl Icahn in the Long-Short battle at Herbal Life... Akman being massively short
and using every shortn trick in the book (some heavy in the grey area of legality) to bash Herbalife... Icahn was heavily long on Herbalife... Akman came across as a spoiled prep school kid in the public battle and he became hated by Wall Street (much more than he already was)....
So fast forward to pre-VRX crash and you have a powerful "short cartel" looking for a big juicy target that satisfies multiple agendas:
-Akman was VRX largets sharholder so by crashing the stock they could ravage Akman.
-Politians needed a company to make an example of for their election posturing..
-Big Pharma would be happy to obliterate a rising new comer competitor.
VRX being an offshore company paying little US taxes, and the jig was up for them IMO..The were singled out to be pounded... NPH can learn from this debacle by firstly being careful going foreward in which financial partners it chooses.. The last part is easy and they just have to make sure they walk the straight and narrow and keep their nose clean....
There are some other good lessons (not so immenent though) for NPH in the VRX saga also... like in postioning and structuring for a US market strategy... Also now that Pearson appears to be thoughing in the towel, and the company changing strategies to survive, NPH could actually be an aquisition target for them in a new strategy...time will tell...GLTA