Chairman upbeat on outlook for Elan

Elan's product pipeline looks more promising than ever and it is hopeful the US regulator's investigation of its accounting practices will shortly come to a close, chairman Dr Garo Armen told shareholders yesterday.

Speaking at the company's delayed annual general meeting in Dublin, Dr Armen also said Elan had exceeded its $1.5 billion (€1.3 billion) end-2003 target for asset disposals to meet liabilities.

The programme had raised more than $1.7 billion to date, he said.

The company might sell other assets in the next couple of months but was not relying on such sales for its restructuring and, in any case, wanted to bring the asset disposal process to a conclusion by the end of November.

Analysts took Dr Armen's statement as a sign that Elan might be struggling to secure a reasonable price on further sales.

Goodbody's Mr Ian Hunter noted that the company had said it expected between $300 million and $400 million in further disposals when it reported second-quarter figures last August. Those had not materialised.

"That $300-$400 million is not needed to pay off debt this year but, without it, Elan could find itself short of cash in the middle of next year," Mr Hunter said.

Davy analyst Mr Jack Gorman said that Elan had given some detail on the timetable in relation to the SEC investigation in a meeting with analysts ahead of the a.g.m.

"The chief executive [Mr Kelly Martin\] hopes that the investigation process itself will conclude by year-end," said Mr Gorman.

"This will be followed by a period for analysis and to give its final opinion. The message ... was reasonably upbeat in our view."

Dr Armen said Elan was more optimistic than it had been a year earlier.

"We have made much progress toward rebuilding for our future, towards becoming a company which has the potential to launch blockbuster products that treat debilitating diseases such as Crohn's, multiple sclerosis, rheumatoid arthritis, Alzheimer's and pain."

Shareholders generally welcomed the positive tone of statements from Dr Armen and Mr Martin to the meeting. However, several returned to events of the past couple of years.

Mr Colm Ó Briain asked what damage had been done to Elan by what he referred to as the "savages" in hedge funds and also what efforts, if any, had been made by non-executives on the company board to address the "financial engineering and manipulation" at the company before crisis hit.

Dr Armen said the company had concentrated on what had gone wrong internally rather than blaming outside influences, such as hedge funds, for driving down the company's stock.

He also said that non-executive directors were not at fault.

Mr Gerry Power, another shareholder, accused the company of failing to "get its message out". It had not rebutted damaging statement about the company, including those of the chairman of the SEC, and had also not capitalised on good news.

Mr Martin, who told the meeting that creating shareholder value was the the primary focus of company management, said this would not be achieved by addressing every comment made about the company.

"We will discuss the facts, when they are available," Mr Martin said.