Pharmalot's Ed Silverman wrote a solid piece on a second tier/also-ran serial pharma/life-science sell-off maven, and mentioned -- in passing -- that Fred Hassan is still the king of that game. I might have mentioned his proclivity to pocket an entirely out-sized chunk of the busted-up companies' cash, for himself (and cronies) along the way (as well as his pattern for seeing his ex-companies plead guilty to felonies, after the fact!) -- but why quibble? Ed is certainly right as to the broad strokes here -- do go read it all:
. . . .Whenever shareholders bemoan the fate of their investment in this or that drugmaker, invariably someone mentions that Fred Hassan should become ceo. Why? Fred has a. . . controversial track record of running companies and then selling to others. This happened when he ran Pharmacia [Editors' note: subsequently resulting in felony plea deals, and the largest criminal fine in pharma history!], which was sold to Pfizer, and more recently with Schering-Plough [also the subject of a DoJ consent decree until 2013], which is now part of Merck. . . .
[J]ust pick the name of a languishing stock and maybe Adams will show up. Unless Fred gets there first. . . .
What a sad set of messes Fred has left in his wake; do be wary all you Bausch + Lomb employees (and lenders).
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