Indivior’s nightmare
So, London-listed Indivior’s share price fell through the floor yesterday.
News came out that it has been accused by the US Department of Justice of illegally elevating prescription sales of its opioid addiction treatment between 2006 and 2015 while it was part of consumer goods company Reckitt Benckiser when it was called Reckitt Benckiser Pharmaceuticals.
Indivior will obviously fight against the allegations but the company insisted that this all happened before it was spun out of the much larger Reckitt Benckiser back in 2014, with the implication that if it is fined it will look to Reckitt Benckiser to pay at least some of the penalty.
Indivior’s share price fell by over 70% and Reckitt’s by 7% on the news yesterday.
This looks like becoming a very big deal and will surely be a major cloud over Reckitt Benckiser until its involvement becomes clearer.
Tesco’s triumph
The other thing I wanted to talk about today was Tesco’s triumphant performance yesterday.
With pre-tax profits up by almost 30% and revenues up by over 11% it seems that chief executive “Drastic” Dave Lewis’ turnaround of Britain’s biggest supermarket is complete.
Remember that he took on the top job almost five years ago when Tesco’s was in the doldrums and since then he has pulled out of a number of international markets, cut headcount, overhauled the running of the stores and taken over Booker.
The likes of Sainsbury’s and Asda will be looking on jealously while Aldi and Lidl continue to narrow the gap.
Some say that he may now leave – which would be taken badly by the market given his success – but he says that he will be staying as he feels that the job is not yet finished. Hmmm.
Given what he’s done and given that this kind of experience is highly regarded, I would be REALLY surprised if he doesn’t move in the short to medium term given the sheer number of other turnaround opportunities there are out there at the moment.