Investment firm Pershing Square Capital Management on Monday identified its six nominees for spots on the board of Allergan as it tries to buy the Botox maker.

 

Pershing Square’s Bill Ackman and Valeant Pharmaceuticals have offered $72 per share, or about $53 billion, in cash and stock, for Allergan, which has rejected several offers and adopted a “poison pill” measure to block a takeover. Pershing Square wants to hold a special meeting where Allergan shareholders can have a say in the buyout bid and on the Irvine, California-based company’s direction.

 

Pershing Square’s nominees are Betsy Atkins, Cathleen Black, Fredric Eshelman, Steven Shulman, David Wilson and John Zillmer. There are nine directors on Allergan’s board, and if all six nominees were elected, Pershing Square would have majority control of Allergan.

 

Atkins and Black hold positions with private equity firms. Black is also a former director of Hearst Corp. and served as chancellor of New York City Schools for three months in 2011. Eshelman is a principal at a fund that invests in early-stage health care companies, and he is also a former chairman and CEO of Pharmaceutical Product Development. Shulman is a managing director at a private equity firm. Wilson was the president and CEO of Graduate Management Admission Council, a not-for-profit education association, and Zillmer was chairman of industrial and specialty chemicals maker Univar.

 

Valeant Pharmaceuticals International Inc. said Allergan shareholders have a right to make a decision about the company’s future and said it supports the special meeting Pershing Square has proposed.

 

Allergan shares fell $3.47, or 2.1%, to $165.66 in afternoon trading. They have almost doubled over the past year.

 

Date: July 7, 2014

Source: Associated Press