Valeant Part XIII: channeling Jeff Skilling - or trying to reconstruct Valeant's balance sheet

There was a very famous conference call once where Highfields Capital analyst Richard Grubman asked for a balance sheet with Enron's earnings statement. Jeff Skilling's response is a key part of the Enron legend.

Grubman: You’re the only financial institution that can’t produce a balance sheet or cash flow statement with their earnings. 

Skilling: You…you…you. Well, uh…thank you very much. We appreciate it. Asshole.

The "asshole" quip disappeared from the conference call transcript but everyone remembered it.

Well today Valeant produced a earnings result with only cursory balance sheet data and no balance sheet. Linked here is the SEC release.  And here is all they say about balance sheet.

Valeant Pharmaceuticals International, Inc.

Table 5

Consolidated Balance Sheet and Other Data

(In millions)

5.1 Cash

		As of				As of
		September 30,				December 31,
		2014				2013
Cash and cash equivalents		$	808.8			$	600.3
Marketable securities			—				—
Total cash and marketable securities		$	808.8			$	600.3
Debt
Series A-1 Tranche A Term Loan Facility		$	182.3			$	259.0
Series A-2 Tranche A Term Loan Facility			166.3				228.1
Series A-3 Tranche A Term Loan Facility			1,813.9				1,935.7
Series D-2 Tranche B Term Loan Facility			1,088.6				1,256.7
Series C-2 Tranche B Term Loan Facility			837.5				966.8
Series E-1 Tranche B Term Loan Facility			2,544.8				3,090.5
Senior Notes			9,629.5				9,618.9
Other			12.0				12.0
			16,274.9				17,367.7
Less: current portion			(191.7	)			(204.8	)
Total long-term debt		$	16,083.2			$	17,162.9

Okay - net debt was $15,466.1 million (being $16,274.9 minus 808.8).

Lets go back a quarter ago. Here is the balance sheet from the 10Q:

VALEANT PHARMACEUTICALS INTERNATIONAL, INC.

CONSOLIDATED BALANCE SHEETS

(All dollar amounts expressed in millions of U.S. dollars)

(Unaudited)

	As of June 30,  2014				As of December 31,  2013
Assets
Current assets:
Cash and cash equivalents	$	531.2			$	600.3
Trade receivables, net	1,770.7				1,676.4
Inventories, net	942.5				883.0
Prepaid expenses and other current assets	452.6				343.4
Assets held for sale	1,156.9				15.9
Deferred tax assets, net	309.8				366.9
Total current assets	5,163.7				3,885.9
Property, plant and equipment, net	1,319.6				1,234.2
Intangible assets, net	11,751.4				12,848.2
Goodwill	9,436.3				9,752.1
Deferred tax assets, net	18.3				54.9
Other long-term assets, net	206.3				195.5
Total assets	$	27,895.6			$	27,970.8
Liabilities
Current liabilities:
Accounts payable	$	327.7			$	327.0
Accrued and other current liabilities	1,774.9				1,800.2
Acquisition-related contingent consideration	88.9				114.5
Current portion of long-term debt	266.7				204.8
Liability held for sale	27.1				—
Deferred tax liabilities, net	11.0				66.0
Total current liabilities	2,496.3				2,512.5
Acquisition-related contingent consideration	238.1				241.3
Long-term debt	17,058.8				17,162.9
Pension and other benefit liabilities	165.5				172.0
Liabilities for uncertain tax positions	115.8				169.1
Deferred tax liabilities, net	2,238.8				2,319.2
Other long-term liabilities	215.0				160.5
Total liabilities	22,528.3				22,737.5
Commitments and contingencies (note 17)
Equity
Common shares, no par value, unlimited shares authorized, 333,777,181 and
333,036,637 issued and outstanding at June 30, 2014 and December 31, 2013, respectively	8,325.9				8,301.2
Additional paid-in capital	212.2				228.8
Accumulated deficit	(3,175.3		)		(3,278.5		)
Accumulated other comprehensive loss	(104.7		)		(132.8		)
Total Valeant Pharmaceuticals International, Inc. shareholders’ equity	5,258.1				5,118.7
Noncontrolling interest	109.2				114.6
Total equity	5,367.3				5,233.3
Total liabilities and equity	$	27,895.6			$	27,970.8

Cash and equivalents was $531 million. Long term debt was $17058 million. Current debt was $266.7 million.

Net debt was thus $16793 million.

Net debt thus dropped $1327 million in the quarter. That looks pretty good.

Except that they sold the Aesthetics business during the quarter.

Slide 165 of this presentation (reproduced below) indicates net proceeds of $1240 million.

Net of this they generated only $88 million of cash in the quarter.

Which given they had $2 billion of sales and everyone thinks their cash margin is about 50 percent does not seem to compute.

We could of course work it out with a balance sheet and cash flow statement. It is probably all sweet and innocent.

So at the risk of being called an "asshole" please Mr Pearson will you give me a balance sheet and a cash flow statement with your earnings?





John