pearson's leadership, but he says in fact in ang e-mail he sent directly to mike pearson personally threees after 2:00 this afternoon that he shares the board's confidence in mr. pearson, his leadership in the company, and that is the latest we have. so the board defending mr. pearson and now mr. ackman, one of the largest shareholders of valeant, appear to be doing the same. >> i know you read the same article we all read in "the wall street journal" and one of the quotes sh this that pearson may to leave. it sounds like ackman is basically backing away from that article and backing away from what he might have conveyed to the company through these correspondences. >> look, i think the situation is so fluid. there literally could be another story at any moment. i think it's a keeping our options open kind of matter of fact. saying, look, if the situation spirals out of control, who knows what's going to happen and what the future of mr. pearson ultimately will be. we simply don't know because we don't know where the news flow is going to take this story next, if anywhere, but the fact of

drew: we saw some of these comments yesterday where there was speculation about is mike pearson, the ceo, still going to be there. stephanie was mentioning bill ackman before. .e e-mailed pearson yesterday he went on to say i disagree with some of the choices you make, but he is the right ceo for the company. the company put out a statement saying that pearson has the board's. port. but i do not -- that pearson has the board's full support. this thing got batted back-and-forth. intercontinental hotels group is looking at strategic options. this is the second hotel group to come out and say this because starwood also has hired advisers to look at strategic options. starwood, of course, the owner of westin and saint regis. intercontinental group is the largest hotel group in the world, only worth $4.9 million. the extent -- at at the london exchange trade as well. matt, we have to take a quick break. oliver, who broke this for us on valeant, thank you. drew armstrong, thank you very much. jeffrey solomon, you are with us for the hour. this guy just made you more competitive and give you

. >> if reporting is on point, would indicate bill ackman was backing away from support from mike pearson saying he may have to go. it was the phrasing in the "wall street journal." this sort of rings a bell when you look at ackman and jc penney. after he said he has to go, ackman sold his shares. >> i had two reactions to that disclosure. if you look at the fine print in the story, bill put it as a theoretical e-mail to the chairman of the board saying if something to the effect of if mike pearson is going to take on a bunker status than communicate and get the message out and acknowledge there was no fraud, which is his belief, he has to go. sort of a theoretical. by the end of the story, ackman is supposedly satisfied with pearson's reaction and the way he communitied with investors. i'm sure the truth is somewhere in between. we know as journalists, oftentimes when it gets to the public domain, the ceo may be under fire. i don't know that's the case here. ackman is not the lead director. >> in these situations, the sentiment is one way here. we can't stop talking about it. doesn't see

goldman sachs making a margin call on ceo mike pearson.t firm selling more than one million shares of valiant stock. kate kelly joining us with the latest in a story, kate, that has something new every day. >> i know, scott. never a dull moment with the valiant situation in recent weeks. shares are up today after another huge rout yesterday. compounded, perhaps, by that stock sale that goldman sachs made when valeant ceo mike pearson was unable to put a pass to meet a margin call to the tune of $100 million. that stock acted as collateral, and when it dropped in value, goldman asked for additional cash to secure the loan, but it added, nonetheless, that that stock sale i'm referring to to ongoing concerns about the pharma company's shares. that had been under fire of late. on paper valeant appears to be one of the most popular hedge fund stocks. the 11th most widely epd held on the top 50 list that it compiled last quarter, and to have respected new move twal fund names ru an tops the list, and they've expressed support for the company fol

on the valeant call, mike pearson saying goldman didn't give him time to post collateral.w, when i worked at goldman sachs, we gave you time to post collateral. >> it was a swift drop down. it was $100 million loan against the stocks. >> i've taken someone's keys. it can get ugly. if he says goldman didn't give him time. that's an interesting story. also following gaming. just keep getting a bad sense about some of those -- i know the fantasy stocks -- they're not stocks, but a company called amaya, reported a number that wasn't so good. that's a gambling company. that stock coming in. every time i see amaya, i think about watches with the fanduel, the draftkings. i find that an up in the air thing because this amaya is right in my face getting killed. it's a gambling company. >> a lot of discussion about credit suisse's note on apple. they cut their calendar '16 estimates by 6%. they say apple lowered component orders by as much as 10%. the company has not commented on any of this. >> for the last 60 points i've been saying this kind of thinking has gotten people out of t

mike pearson is still there. the company is continuing on its current course.but that power does exist for these people to use if at some point they decide that is the remedy they want to take. scarlet: there is a lot of drama going on. i wonder how much of it is a distraction to the company. it cannot pursue its usual m&a strategy of buying companies and adding to its currency. drew: this company has been all about deals, finding assets that it thinks are somehow undervalued in the market place or that he can do a better job with picking them up, folding them into valeant, cutting costs, all the things. now they have a lot of debt. their currency for acquisition is sears they devalued, which is harder and harder for them to do a big deal. they are not really in the midst of doing anything right now because of that as far as we know. alix: i love that, your stock is your currency. it does use a lot of money on r&d. at one point do those become under pressure? drew: the question on pricing pressure we are seeing, washington coming in and saying we want to know h

holder had expressed serious reservations about the leadership of the company, specifically the ceo mike pearsondropped 20% today, below $80, below $75 at one point. bill ackman and valeant have come out with these expressions of support. he still does have 21 million shares of the stock. the stoxx lights, the company is -- the stocks slides. hasd: bill ackman saying he -- this company has not invested enough in public relations. there was an amazing piece on the terminal today looking at how much this company has spent on lobbying versus its competitors. drew: it's not like hey, let's cut costs. it has been really fascinating. there's been $200,000 a year on lobbying, far less than kind of parts. -- their counterparts. the trade group kicked valiant valeant was never a member. when they turn on you, you are left standing alone and if you do not have your own lobbying mechanism in washington , it can be a lonely place to be. there's democrats on capitol hill calling for investigations, threatening subpoenas. the communication strategy, not having the ceo be out there and present the bending the

out thee: you take business model and mike pearson and you have those drugs.ow how to run a drug company, why not buy them on the cheap? liam: you may have a great point. i just know that if i were the ceo, i would be taking a big risk stepping into a name like that. some of it could be corporate preservation. the other part of it could be not being sure of where the bottom is. david: it is very hard to quantify that risk. erik: i want to talk about john malone. liberty global is a non-us company, one of your biggest holdings. what do you like about it? the guy you mentioned. since i got in the business, john has created more wealth for my shareholders that anyone. this guy has a very good feel for economic value creation. it is not so much focusing on near-term earnings -- he has proven over time that he is able to take assets, grow them, maximize their value, and then deliver that to shareholders. liberty, in this case, they seem --complex -- liberty media john malone is known for some complex engineering. obviously, the result before themselves, but sometim

they were holding them as collateral as part as a $100 million for the loans to mike pearson.used the loans to finance journal contributions to duke university and find a community swimming pool. 1/5 of the total holdings. we will talk more about valiant in a few minutes. square is selling its initial public offering at 27 million shares with a price range of $11-$13. hoping to raise about $285 million. jack dorsey will have about 26% voting power. facebook is building a virtual reality content creation. a trio of microsoft researchers. they were previous at microsoft research working on projects like hyperlabs technology for stabilizing videos. you can get more business news at bloomberg.com. let's head back to the markets desk with julie. julie: based on earnings. disney, we got this after the close of trade, but he was higher by 2.5%. dreamworks animation, disney coming up with reassuring numbers on espn in particular. those espn numbers and network numbers in general came in ahead of what analysts had been estimating. dreamworks doing well on the strength of home sales of

that's what mike pearson, the ceo of valeant, and maybe other executives as well, last conference call were two handfuls of executives on that call. whether he's successful in building back that confidence and the trust in val antibiotic. >> and it's been a crooked road, right? those calls even by bill ackman's own discussion have been a bit scripted. i mean, i think pearson tried to flood the zone by having like ten deputies answer all sorts of questions on their longer call, but then there was this news of his margin call, his personal margin call last week that forced a stock sale. it's kind of been one step forward, a step back recently. >> guys, thoughts? >> a quick question for you. you know, the most damning thing here to me seems to be the $100 million that they used to purchase an option, presumably that's now written off because philidor is no more. i guess somebody could say, well, they didn't have to disclose that, but as an investor that's a lot of money. i'm not an investor, i should point that out, but that's what's pretty damning to me. >> it is a lot of money, and they

mike pearson in this case. >> it's hard to imagine the company, it was not an 80 billion dollar companybut can't they be more creative. there was an article today, a hedge fund -- she owned a lot of this. why do they own so much valeant. >> because it had the earnings per share growth versus merck. you get behind ackman, you buy valeant. it should have been valeant/ackman corp. >> interestingly, as we said, it was value-act -- >> value-ackman. you have the young group. >> the cornerstone of that company that benefited the most from the run-up. it's amazing how many hedge funds own this group. come on, man. how many thousands of stocks are there? this is all they can come up with. >> ackman loved it. people got behind ackman and listened to pearson, raising numbers, raising numbers. did anybody look how? you cut the r & d, nobody cared about that. suddenly hillary clinton tweets that you should short valeant. that was not exactly the tweet. but that is what people did. we played a song coming in here. you said it was about plum creek timber. i said it was about the eagles win it was actu

mike pearson there being highlighted.e also got to hear from some of the congress people on just what they're trying to accomplish here. take a listen. >> it is time for us to look at the regulations around drug pricing. to get the information that we need. to have sensible rules that make access for ordinary consumers, ordinary taxpayers who are helping to develop these drugs, make those drugs available to them. >> now, industry organization bio coming out today saying in part it's disappointed that these politicians are focusing on the price of drugs and not the benefit they bring to society. this has been an ongoing saga here, and really trying to find out how drugs get priced is something that the senate said today they're going to start investigating as well. two senators sending letters to four companies. valiant, touring, the touring ceo's former company, and a fourth private company. just trying to get more information as to how they made pricing decision about acquiring drugs and raising their prices. this has be

the director that peter is asking about and mike pearson himself who bill ackman said in the "wall street journal" he said i don't know if this is the guy to testify before congress to come out with a strong defense, public defense of this company. would a management change in either of those positions benefit this company from here? >> we know investors really like pearson and he has the confidence of the analyst community as well. is he warm and cuddly socially responsible person? he's more of a pure plate capitalist figure, if you will, but that said we think he's very credible, we think he could stand up to, you know, a discussion with congress, but it wouldn't be a disaster for the company if they put someone else from management on the board, for example, arie cowan and put pearson on the board instead. they've seen that at a lot of other pharma companies. >> truth. peter, last word. >> is there a price you would get in, peter? >> not yet, bill. let me just say one more thing. the sum of the parts analysis is quite popular now breaking up the company. that's a great way to approach

-- mike pearson remaining as ceo?e to be doing m&a and cannot because they are frozen. so we will see. thank you for being with us. --phanie: both david and i [indiscernible] -- we talk we week about the business of wine. ♪ stephanie: welcome back to bloomberg . after saudi arabia repeated it is prepared to work with opec and other oil producers to stabilize global markets. earlier the day oil was down almost 4%. up for cybermping monday. they plan to offer deals on more than 2000 items. four times as many discounts as it had last year. they will begin cyber monday deals the day before. they are the first monday after thanksgiving editors time to cook off the holiday season -- thanksgiving, and it is time to kick off the holiday season. a chinese billionaire just spent $170 million on this painting. he will be putting it on his amex. he is the invitation only black card. stephanie: that is amazing. what does he get for that, and now. you go. stephanie: i'm going to guess that he does not fly commercial. turning fr

pearson you mike heard today versus a few weeks ago?rew: this was a different tone it soundednt and more conciliatory. he talked about how this has been a painful period for him. he says this has been painful for a lot of other people. say that we are going to listen to critics and be much more transparent. which they have not done as much previously. -- they haveis was been aggressively defending the company in the past. scarlet: less defensive and he spent a lot of time answering questions. of questions?cope drew: everything. there were some things he did not answer and there were some questions, the analysts on the call asked some aggressive questions. others were more specific about aspects of the business. one of the things he did emphasize is the company is on to go through a rough patch in terms of sales. there are going to be problems with dermatology sales and some sales are likely to be down while they transition away from y pharmacy. is there another shoe to drop? do you think you have solved most of the issues. talked about

governor mike huckabee joins us at the top of the hour and donald trump says that he wants a database to track muslims in america. we're gong to tack to newly hired spokesperson katrina pearsonust three minutes away. stay with us. stuart: a week since perez. a week since president obama could have taken a fight against islamic terror. he did not. president obama seems to be in an petulant denial. it has not on unnoticed. look at the washington post this morning. obama now speaks embittered from the ruins of our national security policy. the article is a complete dismissal of president obama has a leader. he is petulant and peeved. this president reserves the anger for republicans. a president whose wartime leadership inspired not by winston churchill or fdr, but by rachel man out. this morning, we wake up to a new terror attack. will he still veto it? will he want boots on the ground. even relatively going on. the airways are jammed with military people. this is war. leadership is the focus. president obama has not led. he has petulantly aimed his fire at his critics, not at terror. he cannot take charge. history will judge his presidency a failure. ♪ just pointing us. let m