And The Winners Are Actavis, Allergan And Ackman

With White Knight Actavis standing in its corner, Allergan was able to outmaneuver Valeant Pharmaceuticals and Bill Ackman’s hedge fund, Pershing Square Capital, breaking a seven-month siege of the company. Earlier this morning on CNBC, the CEOs of Actavis and Allergan appeared on the financial network to extoll the virtues of the picture perfect arrangement between the two companies. I expect this deal to be added to the annals of business school case studies very quickly. What really sets this attempted takeover apart from the classic cases we study is the surprise partnership that emerged between a publicly traded company, Valeant, and a private hedge fund, Pershing Capital. It was a creative and intelligently designed approach that will surely raise the bar of activist investing.