New Valeant Pharmaceuticals Intl Inc Board Sends Message As Firm Reinstates Earnings

The day after what was described as “the most brutal” Senate grilling of a corporate executives in memory, a beat-down involving Valeant Pharmaceuticals, the company restated earnings and materially re-shuffled the board of directors. While the restatement was material, it was the new board members focused on fraud and medical issues that points to the future. For investors, the question going forward is likely to have less to do with medical innovation, which have notoriously long execution cycles with low win percentages, than it will leverage. The issue investors might be watching, in part, is likely to center on debt burden, one that was cited as causation for almost bankrupting the firm.