So we came to 2014 with Valeant looking for something new to buy. In April, Valeant teamed up with hedge fund manager William A Ackman to make its hostile Allergan offer. This also came with a "seriously, that's legal?" wrinkle: Valeant and Ackman agreed on a joint bid to buy Allergan, and then the fund manager bought nearly 10 per cent of Allergan before the bid. Valeant made its generous proposal public, and Ackman was sitting on a huge paper profit. (Fear not, this isn't insider trading. The rules are not just that you trade on material, non-public information, but that you got it from someone who wasn't supposed to tell you, in exchange for something of value.)