In a question of hours Grifols has moved from defence to attack. The major Catalan pharma company has announced that it will take legal action against Gotham City, after the fund claimed that the Catalan firm had manipulated its accounts to hide debt. "Grifols is to take legal action against Gotham City Research for the significant damage caused, both financial and reputational, to the company, as well as to all its stakeholders and for causing great concern to its patients and donors," said the company chaired by Thomas Glanzmann in a statement sent to Spain's National Securities Market Commission (CNMV) .
The blood-plasma specialist made its third statement in the last 24 hours, after Gotham City created chaos for the company, whose shares fell by more than 25% on the IBEX share index on Tuesday. The press declaration, issued following an urgent meeting of the board of directors on Tuesday afternoon, reiterated that the company has acted correctly and, in addition, has decided to take legal action. As well, the board expressed its unanimous support for the current president, Thomas Glanzmann, who was specifically singled out by the vulture fund in its report even though the practices denounced were prior to his taking office.
In the same line as the two previous statements, in which Grifols denied all the accusations made by Gotham City and argued that their accounts were public, audited and in the hands of the CNMV, the board insisted that "all the relevant operations described, published yesterday in the report [by Gotham], have been unanimously approved by the company board and its committees, and include all the necessary information and documentation, including evaluations and opinions of third parties".
The board also responded to the opportunistic fund's questioning of the price of the 2018 purchases of Haema AG and Biotest, calling into question its judgment as Gotham "does not have the appropriate information." "As in the purchase of any business, the price paid is not only the price of the assets but also their ability to generate profits," the statement added. It also defended the price of the agreement with Immunotek for the purchase of plasma and the purchase of another 25 plasma centres, which he says are in the market.
That press release seems to have convinced analysts, as after its publication, Grifols shares rebounded about 12 percent, and the company has ended trading this Wednesday having recovered almost half of the value it lost yesterday.