SEC Asked Valeant to Change How It Reported Deal Costs, Tax
- M&A costs shouldn’t be excluded as one-time items in results
- Valeant, regulators exchanged letters from December to April
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U.S. securities regulators last year told Valeant Pharmaceuticals International Inc. that it needed to clarify how it reported financial results to investors, and that expenses from the drugmaker’s many acquisitions shouldn’t be excluded from adjusted earnings as one-time costs.
In a series of letters between the Securities and Exchange Commission and Valeant from December to April, the drugmaker was told that it could no longer describe in earnings releases a “core” business that excluded the cost of deals, because Valeant made so many acquisitions that such activity was a regular part of its operations.