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Milan Panic may be out of an everyday role at ICN Pharmaceuticals Inc., but he's not down.
The colorful former chairman and chief executive of the Costa Mesabased drug maker still has plenty to say about the company he retired from in June.
In an interview, the outspoken Panic said he expects to have input on a permanent chief executive for the company, and has nothing but nice words for ICN's interim chief, Robert O'Leary.
As for the drug maker's recent earnings warning that cut its share price in half: Panic blames a Wall Street overreaction. ICN is the target of several shareholder lawsuits, including one recently filed by San Diego lawyer Bill Lerach's Milberg Weiss Bershad Hynes & Lerach LLP.
Panic, who founded the Costa Mesa-- based drug maker in the early 1960s with $200, retired from ICN in a shake-up. The 72-year-old former Yugoslavian prime minister stepped down shortly after he found himself on the losing end of a proxy fight with institutional shareholders who said they didn't like the company's direction. Six of ICN's nine directors have been hand-picked by dissident shareholders.
Panic remains a director and major ICN shareholder with 1.7 million shares, a 2% stake in the company.
And he's launched a new company, Costa Mesa-based Milan P Enterprises LLC, and plans to have a book about his life and career out next year.
In an interview last week, an upbeat Panic touched on a number of topics, including the earnings warning, two years of proxy battles and his ICN legacy.
Panic also had a few choice comments on business philosophy. He was particularly critical of so-called professional managers and says that...