Follow up on Norma Provencio, Valeant and Signalife/Heartronics

Valeant has offered a short reply to my last post. To quote in full:

We understand that Ms. Provencio participated in a private placement in May 2003 and completely sold her position in 2004.  We also understand that Mr. Stein was neither an officer nor director of Signalife during the time period of Ms. Provencio’s investment. According to Mr. Stein’s indictment, his fraudulent activities began in July 2005.

The background is that Ms Provencio, the chair of Valeant’s audit committee had held the same position at Heartronics/Signalife which has since been exposed as a major fraud and where the principal (Mr Stein) is in prison.

So lets take the defence of Ms Provencio as read.

Valeant seem to accept that Mr Stein’s fraudulent activities began in July 2005.

Ms Provencio joined the Heartronics/Signalife board on 29 July 2005.

Her tenure as chair of the audit committee coincided to the month the beginning of outright criminality.

Moreover we know she previously co-invested in Heartronics/Signalife with Mr Stein. To quote and earlier annual report:

On May 15, 2003, we completed the first tranche of a private placement pursuant to which we sold 82,667 units to Mr. Mitchell Stein, SJ Investments and Ms. Norma Provencio at $3 per unit for cash amounting to $248,000. Each unit consisted of one common share and one warrant. Each warrant is exercisable at $3 until May 14, 2004. Upon exercise of the warrants each investor will receive one common share and an additional warrant to purchase one common share $6 per share until November 15, 2004.

Mr. Stein is the spouse of Ms. Tracey Hampton, who owns and controls ARC Finance Group, LLC, which owns approximately 69.6% of our outstanding common shares.