Cha-Ching!

Here’s something we dug out of the U.S. Securities & Exchange Commission’s files, although it is a few months old:

Les Baledge of Fayetteville, who retired as general counsel for Tyson Foods Inc. of Springdale in 2003, got a nice payday when Chinese pharmaceutical company BMP Sunstone Corp. was acquired by Sanofi-aventis of Paris back in February. To the tune of about $30 million.

Baledge was a director of BMP, which had U.S. headquarters in Pennsylvania. When the deal with Sanofi-aventis was announced last October, the sale price of $10 per share was a 30 percent premium over BMP’s market price.

According to the Form 4 filed with the SEC, Baledge owned 1.44 million shares outright, and he had warrants and options and convertible notes as well.

Balege said BMP Sunstone makes the best-selling children’s cold and cough medication in China.

“It was an interesting company to be associated with,” he said.