ValueAct Capital Partners LP, a San Francisco hedge fund operator, has upped its stake in Aliso Viejo-based Valeant Pharmaceuticals International to 17%.
ValueAct, the drug maker? largest shareholder, said in a Securities and Exchange Commission filing that it recently bought 1.63 million shares of the drug maker worth about $31.5 million.
The deal brings ValueAct? total holding in Valeant to about 14.9 million shares.
ValueAct is known as an activist investor that urges management to make changes aimed at boosting a company? value.
ValueAct didn? outline any issues with Valeant in its filing. G. Mason Morfit, a ValueAct partner, is a Valeant director.
In 2007, ValueAct played a significant role in blocking a proposed $4.3 billion takeover bid by what was then Santa Ana-based Advanced Medical Optics Inc. for Bausch & Lomb Inc. of Rochester, N.Y.
The hedge fund said the proposed buy of Bausch would expose Advanced Medical to unacceptable risk, and it also doubted Advanced Medical? ability to integrate Bausch.
Advanced Medical is now known as Abbott Medical Optics after being bought earlier this year by Abbott Laboratories for $2.8 billion.
