Pfizer

"2001 dawned, I was chairman of the combined listed company in Iceland, the first time I had been in that position, but the new group’s two pharmaceutical arms were not a natural fit. We had a generic producer and supplier in eastern Europe and an Icelandic distributor of big pharmaceutical brands like Pfizer.…"

"Actavis got over its 2008 management and operational problems and is now a good company with an excellent research and development pipeline. Its recent success has been driven by mergers and acquisitions. First, Actavis was taken over by America’s Watson Pharmaceuticals for €4.25 billion in 2012. The following year, the combined company merged with Ireland’s Warner Chilcott in a deal valued at $8.5 billion. In July 2014 it completed the acquisition of Forest Laboratories for $25 billion. Then Actavis bought Allergan, the manufacturer of Botox, for $70.5 billion, assuming the acquired company’s name. A $160 billion merger with Pfizer was abandoned and Allergan later sold its generic drugs business to Teva Pharmaceuticals for $40.5 billion before being acquired by America’s AbbVie for $63 billion in 2019. Not bad for a company that I bought at a valuation of $20 million in 1999. I originally put only $4.5 million into its privatisation when it had revenues of $100 million. By 2016, when I finalised the sale of my last remaining stake, I had made $1.1 billion from the company. But even before this, after five years in which the financial markets were effectively closed to me, the combined growth of my investments in Play and Actavis had by February 2014 made me – on paper, at least – a billionaire again."