Perhaps in recognition of investors’ concerns about the high level of acquisition integration costs, Valeant told investors in July 2014 that such expenses would be below $70 million in the third quarter of 2014, roughly half the $143 million recorded for such expenses in the second quarter of 2014. They did fall below $70 million, coming in at $63 million. But a Valeant filing later indicated that the target was met by changing where $20 million of restructuring expenses were booked in the income statement.

Ms. Little of Valeant said in an email that these expenses, which related to stock options, were “more appropriately classified” in a different part of the income statement, and the company has kept them there since.

A heavy acquisitions strategy can also generate concerns about a practice known as spring-loading. When one company acquires another, there is usually period of several weeks between the announcement of the deal and the actual date at which the acquired company becomes part of the acquirer. In that interim, the acquirer may find a way to book a higher level of costs and lower revenue at the company being acquired.

This process, which takes place before the acquired company’s financial statements merge with those of the acquirer, is intended to suppress the profitability of the firm being bought, solely for the interim period. Once part of the acquirer, the costs and revenue of the acquired firm return to more normal levels, enabling its profit to surge once it can benefit the bottom line of the acquirer.

Valeant’s skeptics wondered whether this happened with Bausch & Lomb. In a special proxy filing, Valeant included an income statement for Bausch & Lomb for the period between the end of the second quarter of 2013, Bausch & Lomb’s last full quarter as an independent firm, and Aug. 4, 2013, the day before Valeant acquired Bausch & Lomb.

In the interim, Bausch & Lomb’s revenue, expressed on a per-day basis to make it comparable, was 16 percent lower than in the first half of 2013, and then from Aug. 4, 2013, until Sept. 30, 2013, revenue surged to a per-day level that was higher than in the interim and in the first half of that year. Also, some costs rose, on a per-day basis, in the interim from the first half of 2013.

For most of its growth period, Valeant has been led by J. Michael Pearson, who is now leaving, and Howard B. Schiller, the former chief financial officer. Valeant’s board has asked Mr. Schiller to resign, but he has not done so. He said in a statement last week that he did not do anything improper in relation to the planned earnings restatement. And he added in the statement that he was told that Valeant’s external auditors had reviewed certain transactions with Philidor.