Ackman vs Sard Verbinnen: The 2015 Valeant PR Dispute
Bill Ackman, the founder of Pershing Square Capital Management, told investors on a four-hour call on October 30, 2015 that Valeant Pharmaceuticals had underinvested in communications, and Institutional Investor reported that he criticized Valeant's PR firm, Sard Verbinnen. The dispute stood out because Sard Verbinnen was also defending Herbalife, a company Ackman had bet against.
What did Ackman say about Valeant's communications?
Ackman said Valeant had made a mistake by underinvesting in communications, according to a CNBC report that carried Reuters reporting. He said investor relations and government relations were not areas the company had meaningfully invested in, and that investors will accept complexity if there is transparency.
Pershing Square Holdings had announced the call for 9:00 a.m. Eastern on October 30. Institutional Investor reported that it ran four hours, longer than the roughly 3.5 hours of his Herbalife presentation nearly three years earlier.
Why was Sard Verbinnen at the center of the dispute?
Sard Verbinnen was Valeant's public relations firm, and Institutional Investor said Ackman railed at it during the call. EPR's report on the day said Sard Verbinnen also ran the PR campaign for Herbalife, the company Ackman had publicly called a pyramid scheme, while Ackman's side of that fight was represented by Global Strategy Group and Edelman.
That overlap explains why a criticism of an agency became a story. Ackman suggested the firm might be too distracted by Herbalife, according to EPR's 2015 account. EPR could not independently confirm his exact wording, so this page does not quote it.
What was happening to Valeant when Ackman spoke?
Valeant shares had fallen sharply after a report from short-seller Citron Research suggested the company had inflated revenue through its ties to the specialty pharmacy Philidor Rx Services, CNBC reported. Valeant said earlier on October 30 that it had cut its ties with Philidor, and Ackman called the Citron claim verifiably false.
Institutional Investor reported that Valeant stock closed at $29.75 on the day, after a rise of more than 5 percent, against an average purchase price of $186 for Ackman's fund. It also noted that the stock had fallen more than 14 percent on October 22 after the Oregon Attorney General made claims about the company's supplements.
Herbalife executive vice president Alan Hoffman responded in a statement that he hoped Ackman had done more research on Valeant than on Herbalife, Target, Borders and J.C. Penney, according to the same CNBC report.
What happened to Sard Verbinnen afterward?
Sard Verbinnen is now part of FGS Global, as EPR's Sard Verbinnen profile and FGS Global profile describe, and its crisis and special-situations work remains the practice the firm is best known for. The 2015 call is a reference point in that history because an investor graded the agency in public.
What should communications teams take from the Ackman call?
A major shareholder can treat communications spending as a governance issue, so a company under pressure should be ready to show who handles investor relations, government relations and media, and how conflicts between clients are managed. Ackman's own complaint was about investment in those functions, not about a single message.
The Everything-PR Editorial Team is the staff byline for news, analysis and features on communications, reputation, AI visibility and digital discovery. Everything-PR has published since 2009. AI tools assist with research and drafting, and every article is reviewed by a human editor before publication. Coverage follows the Editorial Policy, and substantive corrections are noted on the article under the Corrections Policy.
