Panic buys a piece of his old firm

Milan Panic, founder of ICN Pharmaceuticals Inc., cherry-picked the

company’s biomedical unit Tuesday by purchasing it.

Panic, whose name is pronounced pan-ish, purchased it through his

new privately owned unit MP Biomedicals Inc. The former Yugoslavian

prime minister left ICN a year ago.

“This is an exciting opportunity for me to get back into the

industry where I started my career,” Panic said in a statement. “I

have every confidence that we will be able, by constantly enlarging

the biotechnology field which we serve, to build another highly

successful business.”

ICN Biomedicals, as it was known, had gross sales of more than $42

million in 2002, Panic said. The unit sells a catalog of chemicals to

academic institutions and the industrial clients. It is headquartered

in Irvine and employs 350 people.

While head of ICN, Panic led the development of Ribavirin, the

company’s hepatitis C treatment. However, new management swept Panic

off the board and is now suing the former chairman and chief

executive to return his part of almost $50 million in executive

bonuses paid out last year.

Panic founded ICN in 1959 with just the biomedical unit and grew

the company to a market value of almost $3 billion at one time. As of

Wednesday, it was worth $1.42 billion.

The pharmaceutical company has been on the mend, as it works

through a major restructuring plan.

Also on Tuesday, ICN announced it would begin offering a cash

dividend in the third quarter.

The company’s board said it would pay out 7 3/4cents per share to

investors on July 25 for those holding the stock July 11.

With ICN offloading a number of its assets, stock rater Standard &

Poor’s updated its report on the company, giving it a “hold” rating.

In the June 28 report, the S&P; said it expects “revenues to

decline modestly in 2003” because of the divestitures, increased

competition against Ribavirin and “sluggishness in certain specialty

pharmaceutical lines.”

In the report, S&P; predicted a 5% drop in earnings to 95 cents per

share from $1 per share in 2002.

In 1992, when Panic was head of ICN, he became prime minister of

Yugoslavia. He served for eight months, until being pushed out by

Slobodan Milosevic in 1993. Milosevic is on trial at the Hague for

war crimes in the Balkans during the 1990s.

Shares of ICN closed Thursday at $16.63, a 1.5% drop for the

trading session.

CERADYNE OFFERS A SHARE FOR INVESTORS

Advanced ceramics manufacturer Ceradyne Inc. floated 1.5 million

shares on Tuesday, with another 300,000 coming from a stockholder.

Ceradyne, based in Costa Mesa, offered the shares at $17.50,

raising $24.1 million in funding that it said would be used to reduce

the company’s debt load, expand production and purchase machinery and

equipment.

As of Wednesday, 7.5 million shares were publicly available; a

total of 8.65 million have been issued. The company was worth $156.8

million in market value.

A.G. Edwards & Sons Inc. and Needham & Company Inc. underwrote the

offering. They have 30 days in which to purchase and offer up to

270,000 shares.

During the first half of the year, Ceradyne share prices rocketed

138% to close out the six-month frame at $18.60. It traded below $8

at the end of 2002.

Shares closed Thursday at $18.15 for an essentially flat close on

the day.

* PAUL CLINTON covers the environment, business and politics. He

may be reached at (949) 764-4330 or by e-mail at

paul.clinton@latimes.com.