Bill Ackman To Host Investor Call On Valeant Stake At 9 A.m. Eastern

Bill Ackman, founder of hedge fund Pershing Square Capital Management L.P., will host a conference call with investors at 9 a.m. Eastern on Friday to discuss his investment in embattled drug company Valeant Pharmaceuticals International Inc. . Ackman announced the call in a short statement on Pershing's website. The activist investor owns about 21.5 million Valeant shares, based on a regulatory filing from June 30 and confirmation from a source close to Pershing last week that he had retained all of those shares and taken advantage of a steep decline in the stock last week to buy another 2 million shares. That makes Pershing the second-biggest Valeant shareholder, according to FactSet. Valeant came under heavy selling pressure last week, after a short selling firm published a report that alleged that the company was using specialty pharmacies to juice revenue. The company defended itself against the allegations at an investor meeting on Monday and said it's forming a special committee to investigate claims made by the report and other media articles. Valeant shares are down 5% in premarket trade, and have fallen 37% in the month so far, while the S&P 500 has gained 8.8%.