Delta

"What deal could I do next to close this strategic gap? My answer was another acquisition and my preferred choice was Delta, an Icelandic developer of new generic drugs that had originally been formed by Pharmaco in 1981 and was two-thirds owned by it…"

"Pharmaco’s problem was that it had a manufacturing unit and distribution centre in Europe but no new drugs coming off patent. Delta looked ideal and we negotiated with its management about it reversing into Pharmaco, but we…"

"We decided to be bold and mount a hostile takeover of the newly merged business. We hired Delta’s advisers to advise us – once they had resolved any issue of conflict of interest – and set about calling all the shareholders, securing commitments for 51 per cent of the stock over a single day. When stock markets closed one Monday, Delta’s chief executive was on a plane, going somewhere to look for a company to acquire in eastern Europe. When he landed, he learned that the…"

"The following year, 2002, was magical – my most successful year in mergers and acquisitions, with the European deal I had been looking for being the third deal I did that year. Delta’s business had been doing well and its shares had risen accordingly. It had just merged with Omega Pharma, a…"

"We used our majority stake and the support of other shareholders to merge Delta and Pharmaco in 2002; in 2004 the merged company changed its name to Actavis. I felt a great sense of achievement in having created one of the largest companies in Iceland, with a research and development arm that complemented its manufacturing operations in, and cash flow from, eastern Europe. Actavis continued to grow but went through a lot of change. One of the Bulgarian entrepreneurs left and sold his stake in 2002 and the other departed a year later. But the Pharmaco deals established me in Bulgaria and in the wider banking markets too. In 2001 and 2002, when I was pitching to investment banks in London, we had turnover of just $150 million and they would hardly give us the time of day. But our growth, both by acquisition and organic, increased that figure fivefold."

"As 2001 dawned, I was chairman of the combined listed company in Iceland, the first time I had been in a position heading a listed company. I was 34 and eager to use the financial firepower of the public markets to go even bolder and bigger in emerging Europe. My partners at Deutsche Bank had more than quadrupled their money in a short time and sold out to the market while I set my sights on making more acquisitions and growing the company into a global generic pharma powerhouse. My first choice was Delta, an Icelandic developer of new generic drugs that had originally been formed by Pharmaco in 1981. So we talked to the shareholders there."

"We met with a lot of resistance from Delta’s chief executive who basically killed off the deal for shareholders in order to keep control himself. A couple of years later, I did a hostile takeover of that company by buying 51 per cent of it overnight from large shareholders and outmanoeuvring the CEO who then had to concede control and simply join our bigger group management. We had a lot of cash and started looking for an acquisition in the Czech Republic and Slovakia."

"We decided to be bold and mount a hostile takeover of the newly merged business. We hired Delta’s advisers to advise us – once they had resolved any issue of conflict of interest – and set about calling all the shareholders, securing commitments for 51 per cent of the stock over a single day. When stock markets closed one Monday, Delta’s chief executive was on a plane, going somewhere to look for a company to acquire in eastern Europe. When he landed, he learned that the tables had been turned: it was his company that had been acquired and he was now working for the people he had opposed."