Dive Brief:
- Last week, Pfizer completed its $15 billion acquisition of Hospira for $90 per share.
- Former Hospira CEO F. Michael Ball had 1.41 million Hospira shares, and upon the closing of the Pfizer deal, he's chashing out big time. Ball had to pay $36 million to exercise his stock options, leaving him with net proceeds of $91.1 million in cash.
- Hospira specializes in injectables and biosimilars.
Dive Insight:
In a little more than four years, Ball, who joined Hospira as CEO in March 2011, is walking away with close to $100 million.
What did he do to deserve that? Many would say: Quite a bit during a brief tenure. In addition to battling ongoing quality-control and GMP issues while assuaging the investment community, Ball settled a shareholder suit and expanded Hospira's operations in India. He had a number of succeses, including addressing many of the GMP problems in 2014 (although some issues continued to linger), growing sales, and bolstering investor confidence by talking about the company's turnaround.
The net effect of all of this hardship and action was Pfizer coming in, seeing an opportunity (especially in the dawning era of biosimilars in the u.S.) and paying a 40% premium for the company.
Ball came to Hospira after 16 years at Allergan, but it's not clear what his next move will be.