Pfizer CEO: The activist investors are 'too late'
10/30/2024 03:06
Pfizer had a "constructive" meeting with activist investor Starboard Value last week and spoke publicly about it for the first time on Tuesday.
Pfizer (PFE) CEO Albert Bourla is breathing a little easier after strong third quarter earnings results Tuesday and after the company raised full-year guidance by $1.5 billion, bringing an end to a tense month in which activist investor Starboard Value pressured the company, and Bourla, to make changes.
The company reported $17.7 billion in revenue in the third quarter and now expects between $61 billion and $64 billion for the year. This reflects a surprise boost in sales numbers for COVID-19 treatment Paxlovid amid a COVID wave in recent months.
The news is a welcome win for the company as it executes Bourla's five-point plan, which he outlined last year. The focus is on growing the company's pipeline as it faces key product patent expirations in the back half of the decade. That has been a concern for Bourla, as he believes the company's stock remains undervalued, which has been at the core of a recent fight with Starboard.
As part of the plan, Bourla has carried out cost-cutting moves, which could save more than $4 billion. He also paid $43 billion for cancer drug company Seagen, which has already brought in profits in the recent quarter.
Bourla said that given the efforts made in the past year to help boost Pfizer's stock, he believes that Starboard's attempts to change anything were too late — aligning with Wall Street commentary after Starboard made its move.
Bourla agreed with some of the points made by Starboard, such as the company not giving shareholders near-term value, but he disagreed with Starboard's assessment that he hasn't done enough to change the future outlook.
Starboard CEO Jeff Smith told Bourla that the COVID profits were not properly invested, including with the Seagen deal, to boost Pfizer's cancer drug pipeline. Smith was also not keen on the $11.6 billion purchase of Biohaven and the COVID vaccine revenue-sharing deal with BioNTech (BNTX).
But Bourla said those deals have been "transformational" for the company and account for 80% of the capital that Pfizer has deployed in the last few years — "all are performing at or better than we forecasted," he said.
The tense drama unfolded earlier this month when Starboard amassed a $1 billion stake in the company, and was looking to make major changes. It enlisted former Pfizer CEO Ian Read, Bourla's former boss, and former CFO Frank D'Amelio, who worked under Bourla during the pandemic, to help in the process.
Bourla was apparently first alerted to the potential Starboard fight when he was erroneously copied on an email from D'Amelio. When asked if he was surprised when he found out, Bourla told Yahoo Finance he was, since both executives had easy access to him and could have approached him on their own.
"Ian was my boss for many years, and I maintained close relationships with him, and we were going out with our wives very frequently," Bourla said. "Frank was my CFO for many years. Both had very good access to me."
The story took a surprise turn when the two executives pivoted to supporting Bourla and distanced themselves from the Starboard move.
A meeting between Starboard's Smith and Bourla took place last week after Starboard accused Pfizer of intimidating the two former executives. Pfizer didn't comment because the company was in a quiet period before earnings.
Bourla said during an earnings call Tuesday that he is open to working with shareholders, including Starboard, to increase the company's long-term value.
He told Yahoo Finance that he had asked Smith for ideas during the meeting last week, but Smith "didn't offer any yet. He only said that there is a need for something to change."
Bourla said that if Smith brought up his issues a year ago, he would have agreed with the Starboard chief. But Bourla added it was too late.
"I changed everything 12 months ago. We have delivered three consecutive quarters of growth," he said.
Anjalee Khemlani is the senior health reporter at Yahoo Finance, covering all things pharma, insurance, care services, digital health, PBMs, and health policy and politics. That includes GLP-1s, of course. Follow Anjalee on most social media platforms @AnjKhem.