In an email to , Pershing Square said, “Valeant is an anomaly in an outstanding record over nearly 14 years.”<br />But while his funds notched an exceptional 40 percent gain in 2014 — much of it attributable to the Allergan trade<br />that has drawn the lawsuit — Mr. Ackman’s funds lost 13.5 percent last year and 20.5 percent in 2015.<br />The plaintiffs were investors who had missed out on gains in Allergan stock in 2014<br />because they had sold shares without knowing about Valeant’s impending bid, while Pershing Square, which did know about it, was buying Allergan shares.<br />It would have been very costly for Valeant to finance a takeover of Allergan; instead it struck an agreement on Feb. 25,<br />2014, allowing Pershing Square to take a nearly 10 percent stake in Allergan to support Valeant’s takeover efforts.<br />But only a few months later, Mr. Ackman and his investors began riding Valeant’s shares all the way from $262 to $11, driven both by rival investors who had bet against Valeant’s shares<br />and former fans who dumped the stock as bad news emerged.<br />Valeant, overseen by J. Michael Pearson, quietly strikes an agreement with Pershing allowing the fund company to take a nearly 10 percent stake in Allergan, the pharmaceutical giant<br />and producer of Botox, to support Valeant’s takeover of the company.<br />In a statement, Pershing Square noted that the firm “has generated billions of dollars of profits for its investors<br />and double the stock market returns since the inception of the firm inclusive of our large loss on Valeant.”<br />“Unfortunately,” it continued, “we cannot guarantee that every one of our investments will be successful.