Markets are heading into a new week with several important events, including earnings releases of several major players and a two-day Fed meeting, following which investors will see its opinion on the current and future state of the global economy, as well as will be able to build some expectations regarding a potential interest rate hike later this year. Meanwhile, hours before the opening bell, several companies caught our attention on the back of some important announcements and new developments, including Valeant Pharmaceuticals Intl Inc (NYSE:VRX), General Motors Company (NYSE:GM), Visa Inc (NYSE:V), and Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT).
Let’s take a closer look at the news that put these companies in the spotlight, starting with Valeant Pharmaceuticals Intl Inc (NYSE:VRX), which is currently in the middle of a pretty terrible situation, which managed to wipe its stock’s entire year-to-date returns in the matter of days. The stock cratered after Citron, a short seller, issued a report that questioned some of Valeant’s practices (see details). Earlier today, Valeant Pharmaceuticals Intl Inc (NYSE:VRX) issued a statement, in which it stated that its Board of Directors and its Audit and Risk Committee have reviewed Valeant Pharmaceuticals Intl Inc (NYSE:VRX)’s accounting and “have confirmed the appropriateness of the company’s related revenue recognition and accounting treatment”. The company added that it will establish an ad hoc committee of the board to further review the allegations. Moreover, in another statement issued today, Valeant said that it had re-appointed Mason G. Morfit, the president of Jeff Ubben’s ValueAct Capital, to its board (Morfit previously served on the board between 2007 and 2014). Morfit was also included as a member of the ad-hoc committee.
Valeant’s recent problems have negatively affected investors who managed to build up huge stakes in the company over the years (take a look at the 25 stocks that caused investors to lose $52 billion since the end of the second quarter). The aforementioned ValueAct owns a stake of 14.99 million shares as of the end of June, while Bill Ackman’s Pershing Square established a new stake of 19.47 million shares during the first quarter of 2015 and kept it unchanged in the following three months. Overall, among over 700 funds from our database, a total of 98 investors held stakes equal to roughly 29% of Valeant at the end of September.
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