Forbes – Mallinckrodt is a pharmaceutical company specializing in pain treatment. Its name may sound foreign, but it traces back to the Mallinckrodt brothers, who founded the company in St. Louis in 1867. Most of the company’s sales take place in the U.S. and its main corporate office remains in Missouri. The one major foreign component of Mallinckrodt’s story is its legal domicile, which has been located for tax purposes in Ireland ever since it separated from Covidien COV +0.29% and reemerged as an independent public company in 2013.
The biggest backers of Mallinckrodt are two of the nation’s most prominent hedge fund managers. The hedge fund of billionaire John Paulson, who became one of the nation’s richest men betting against subprime mortgages, is the biggest shareholder of Mallinckrodt with a 9.7% stake. Activist hedge fund manager Barry Rosenstein’s Jana Partners, which likes to impose its views on corporate management, is the third biggest shareholder in Mallinckrodt with a 5.69% stake.
