By David Benoit 

The mudslinging between Allergan Inc. and Valeant Pharmaceuticals International Inc. got more intense on Monday. But it was Morgan Stanley bankers who found themselves caught in the crossfire.

Allergan, which is fending off a $53 billion takeover bid by Valeant, released emails sent by senior Morgan Stanley bankers appearing to denigrate Valeant and its business strategy.

In one email written by David Horn, a Morgan Stanley health-care banker, to Allergan finance chief Jeff Edwards on May 18, the bankers would help persuade shareholders and the media that "Valeant is a house of cards," according to an Allergan statement.

Trouble is, Morgan Stanley is now working for Valeant, the Canada-based drug maker.

The awkward position is an unusual one, mainly because most companies don't publicize such private communications. But the dispute between Allergan and Valeant has become so heated that Allergan is using all the tools at its disposal.

And while Wall Street is no stranger to using tough tactics to win a deal, senior investment bankers were struck by the public disclosure of Mr. Horn, and his boss, Robert Kindler, the bank's head of mergers and acquisitions.

The combination of Valeant and Allergan would be among the year's biggest deals and could yield a windfall of fees in the hundreds of millions of dollars for advisers, not to mention a big boost in the mergers-and-acquisition rankings known as league tables, a closely watched score card among investment bankers.

"This is just another example of bankers looking to do their thing, which is to make a deal happen, and whatever side they are on it doesn't matter," said Brian Quinn, a professor of mergers and acquisitions at Boston College Law School. "What you are seeing from these emails is the sausage being made."

Allergan, the Irvine, Calif., maker of the Botox antiwrinkle treatment, released the contents of the emails as part of a larger package of documents it used to show why shareholders should reject Valeant's offer.

In one email, Mr. Kindler addressed issues that some Valeant skeptics have raised about the sustainability of the company's business model and its stock, which the drug company aims to use as currency in the proposed deal.

"My takeaway is that [Allergan] is not being nearly aggressive enough in going after the [Valeant] business model and currency," wrote Mr. Kindler, a well-known figure in the world of deal advisers.

A footnote at the bottom of the Allergan statement reads: "Permission to use quotations was neither sought nor obtained."

A Morgan Stanley spokeswoman declined to comment.

Some rival bankers said privately Morgan Stanley only did what most banks would do to get involved in such an important deal. Allergan is being advised by Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and Bank of America Corp.

Morgan Stanley also isn't the only bank at one point or another to play both sides of the deal. Goldman Sachs has worked with Valeant on prior occasions, according to S&P Capital IQ, both for M&A and on the sale of its equity, the same stock Goldman's client, Allergan, now publicly questions.

Valeant publicly stood by its man Monday, with Chief Executive Officer Michael Pearson in a statement calling Mr. Kindler one of the "best M&A bankers" and chiding Allergan for a "sign of desperation."

Mr. Pearson added: "While we will have some fun with him later, he's still very much on our team."

Write to David Benoit at david.benoit@wsj.com

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