Business

Valeant Pharmaceuticals shares dropping Wednesday after billionaire investor Bill Ackman walked away from the company, losing more than $3 billion. Ackman sold his entire stake in the struggling drug company after trying to rescue it for 18 months. The abrupt and unexpected move sent Valeant shares tumbling. They have lost 95 percent of their value since mid-2015. Ackman told CNBC, "I should have sold Valeant earlier." Ross Gerber, CEO of investment firm Gerber Kawasaki. (SOUNDBITE) ROSS BERGER, CEO, GERBER KAWASAKI, (ENGLISH) SAYING: "It's really sad to see what a disastrous trade it was, but I think it's a lesson for investors because people should really take note of mistakes that he made throughout this process, and I think this might go down as the worst individual stock trade in the history of investing, so I feel bad for Ackman, but that's life, you know, we all saw this coming, and he blew it." Ackman's hedge fund Pershing Square became one of Valeant's biggest investors when it bought a $3.2 billion stake in 2015. At its peak, the stake was worth roughly $4 billion. But Valeant has faced intense political scrutiny for hiking prices for treatments such as heart drugs Nitropress and Isuprel. And that has sent the company's stock down sharply.