Shareholder Urges Sale of ICN Pharmaceuticals

A dissident shareholder that has pressured ICN Pharmaceuticals Inc. to break the company into three parts said Friday that the company should abandon the plans and, instead, sell itself to the highest bidder.

Special Situations Partners Inc., based in the Cayman Islands, accused the company of failing to move quickly enough on plans to cut the Costa Mesa drug maker into separate publicly traded companies.

The investor group said the company has failed to obtain required tax or shareholder approvals for the proposed restructuring. Special Situations, which holds a 4% stake in ICN, also faulted the company for what it said was an inability to boost stock prices.

“Despite repeated public statements by ICN that it remains committed to the restructuring plan, to date there has been no evidence of material progress on the implementation of the plan,” Special Situations said in a press release that was filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

ICN said Friday that it is “moving forward on all fronts” with the plan but that market conditions would dictate the timing. The company also said it has been open to selling all or part of its operations since late October, provided that course would most benefit shareholders.

Special Situations has long groused about ICN’s direction. After Chief Executive Milan Panic put forth a plan to spin off two units that would have been controlled by ICN, Special Situations met with disgruntled shareholders last September to push for an auction of the company.

Instead, the company eventually came up with a plan to create three independent companies: Ribapharm Inc., ICN Americas and ICN International. Ribapharm would own the rights to ribavirin, ICN’s top-selling hepatitis drug.

ICN stock closed Friday at $25.75 a share, unchanged in New York Stock Exchange trading.