MYL Mylan NV

   (FROM THE WALL STREET JOURNAL 1/2/16) 

A high-stakes affair in normal times, corporate deal making took on even greater weight in 2015, the busiest year ever for mergers. At the end of the roughly $5 trillion year, The Wall Street Journal's deals team presents its view on who gained the most from the bonanza, and who lost out -- or as we call them in our annual offering, the bests and the bloopers.

Bests

Allergan. The year's biggest deal maker was arguably one of the most successful, too. Drug company Allergan PLC followed a torrid, two-year acquisition spree with a pair of major sales in 2015. The rapid-fire buying and selling -- as part of which the company moved its headquarters to the more tax-friendly Ireland -- put it in a position to command a takeover bid of some $150 billion from Pfizer Inc. in the year's biggest deal. That enabled Allergan to register a 22% share-price increase in 2015 through Wednesday, while the stocks of a number of its peers dropped. In the latter group falls Valeant Pharmaceuticals International Inc., another deal-hungry drug maker whose trajectory closely tracked Allergan's before it tried and failed to buy the company's predecessor and then stumbled amid criticism of some its business practices.

-- Dana Cimilluca

Molson Coors. The biggest winner of "MegaBrew" -- the long-awaited tie-up of SABMiller PLC and Anheuser-Busch InBev NV -- may be neither of the two, but rather rival Molson Coors Brewing Co. As part of the $100 billion-plus merger, Molson will assume full ownership of its joint venture with SABMiller and slide into the No. 2 slot in the U.S. by sales. The move would roughly double Molson's annual sales and give it full control of the Miller brand internationally, plus smaller labels like Hamm's and Leinenkugel's. Molson's stock has risen by more than either SABMiller's or InBev's since mid-September, when deal talks first surfaced. It is up 15% since then and 27% on the year -- plenty to toast.

-- Liz Hoffman

Norwegian Cruise Line. A surge in Norwegian Cruise Line Holdings Ltd. shares buoyed returns for its private-equity backers, Apollo Global Management LLC and TPG. Apollo's Leon Black famously said in 2013 the firm was selling "everything that's not nailed down" into a rising stock market. By and large, choppy markets offered fewer such opportunities for private-equity firms in 2015. But Norwegian's shares delivered standout returns, besting all but 43 S&P 500 index members year to date as of Wednesday's close. In four sales beginning in March, Apollo, TPG and a unit of Malaysian conglomerate Genting Group sold a combined $3.5 billion in shares for prices ranging from $50.76 to $57.65, more than double Norwegian's January 2013 IPO price of $19.

-- Matt Jarzemsky

Bloopers

Mylan. Last year should have been a triumphant one for Mylan NV, another drug maker that had recently managed to move its headquarters to a lower-tax jurisdiction. Other companies that avoided a government crackdown on such moves have made purchases enabling them to gain additional efficiency. But Mylan's bid to buy rival Perrigo Co. met with failure in November after a long and arduous struggle, when shareholders rejected it in the biggest hostile takeover ever to go all the way to the finish line. For some Mylan shareholders, it was a doubly bitter outcome, given the company had spurned a takeover offer from Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd. in favor of the Perrigo bid, and now that Teva has agreed to buy Allergan's generic-drug business for $40 billion, there is scant likelihood it will come back with another offer any time soon.

-- Dana Cimilluca

Nicholas Schorsch. The embattled tycoon appeared to have found a lucrative lifeline over the summer when Apollo agreed to buy what was left of his reeling real-estate empire. The year before, an accounting scandal at the property mogul's flagship real-estate investment trust had spooked investors and forced Mr. Schorsch's resignation from leadership roles at some of his companies. The deal with Apollo gave him and a few lieutenants the chance to earn nearly $900 million and hang onto a piece of a business that managed $19 billion. Yet before it could be consummated, the deal fell apart. Mr. Schorsch's woes compounded when another one of his companies, broker RCS Capital Corp., agreed to wind down its wholesale-distribution business in a $3 million settlement with Massachusetts securities regulators over the alleged use of fake proxy votes.

-- Ryan Dezember

Samson Resources. Billions of dollars Wall Street pumped into Samson Resources Corp. evaporated by the time the Tulsa gas producer filed for chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in September. The company's planned reorganization would wipe out the $7.2 billion invested by KKR & Co. and others in a 2011 leveraged buyout, the largest private-equity deal for an oil-and-gas company. (It also would nearly erase Samson's $2.25 billion in bond debt, held by Blackstone Group's credit investing arm, among others.) The pain didn't stop at the chapter 11 filing. A continued slide in gas prices since then have dimmed credit traders' view of Samson's prospects for emerging from bankruptcy in good shape. As a result, loans set to convert into ownership in the company have fallen to pennies on the dollar.

-- Matt Jarzemsky

Valeant investors. The Canadian drug maker was once among Wall Street's biggest winners, with shares rising more than 1,000% over five years. But they came crashing down this autumn amid questions about the company's business model and transparency. Two well-known investors felt the pain. Jeffrey Ubben's ValueAct Capital LP and William Ackman's Pershing Square Capital Management LP together owned stakes worth some $6 billion before the tumble. The losses came during a rough spell for both. ValueAct has struggled to make inroads at Rolls-Royce Holding PLC and seen investments in merger partners Halliburton Co. and Baker Hughes Inc. turn sour. Meanwhile, Pershing Square was set to have the worst year in its history as Herbalife Ltd., its biggest short position, kept climbing and investments in Platform Specialty Products Corp. and Howard Hughes Corp. sputtered.

-- Liz Hoffman

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

January 02, 2016 02:47 ET (07:47 GMT)

Mylan NV (NASDAQ:MYL)
Historical Stock Chart
From Mar 2024 to Apr 2024

Mylan NV (NASDAQ:MYL)
Historical Stock Chart
From Apr 2023 to Apr 2024