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(Alliance News) - The following is a summary of top news stories Monday.
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COMPANIES
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The director of the Oxford Vaccine Group said there was no link between the jab it developed with Anglo-Swedish pharmaceutical giant AstraZeneca and blood clotting, after several countries suspended its use. Andrew Pollard said there was "very reassuring evidence that there is no increase in a blood clot phenomenon here in the UK, where most of the doses in Europe been given so far". "It's absolutely critical that we don't have a problem of not vaccinating people and have the balance of a huge risk, a known risk of Covid, against what appears so far from the data that we've got from the regulators – no signal of a problem," he told BBC Radio. Ireland and the Netherlands on Sunday became the latest countries to suspend their use of the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine out of precaution. Denmark, Norway and Iceland have also paused their rollout of the jab.
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Roche Holding said it has agreed to acquire the US's GenMark Diagnostics to expand its molecular diagnostics portfolio. The Swiss pharmaceutical firm said its GenMark offer is USD24.05 per share, giving a total transaction value of USD1.8 billion. GenMark shares closed 0.2% higher in New York on Friday at USD18.50 each, giving it a market capitalisation of USD1.35 billion. The merger agreement has been unanimously approved by the boards of directors of GenMark and Roche. Once the acquisition is completed, GenMark's operations will continue at its current location in Carlsbad, California, US.
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Flutter Entertainment responded to a CNBC report saying the betting firm is considering spinning out US sports betting subsidiary FanDuel as a separately traded company on a US stock exchange. Flutter noted it "regularly evaluates" its organisational and capital structure in an attempt to best position itself. "Options including the listing in the US of a small shareholding in FanDuel are being considered but no decision has been made at this time. Should a decision be made to proceed with a listing in due course, an announcement will be made as appropriate," the Paddy Power owner added.
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Royal Dutch Shell noted wholly owned subsidiary QGC Common Facilities Co Pty Ltd has completed the sale of a 26% interest in the Queensland Curtis LNG Common Facilities to Global Infrastructure Partners Australia for USD2.5 billion, following regulatory approval. The deal, first announced at the end of December, is consistent with Shell's strategy of selling non-core assets, the oil major said, in an effort to "simplify" its portfolio.
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Danone dismissed its chair in a move that follows months of complaints from foreign shareholders about the French food giant's underperforming share price. Activist investors took aim at Emmanuel Faber, who became Danone's boss in 2017, and his management team, demanding his departure and a revamp at the top as the company struggles to plot a post-Covid recovery strategy. Last month, US fund Artisan Partners said it had built up a sizeable stake in Danone in the hope of prompting strategy and personnel changes, weeks after another hedge fund, London-based Bluebell Capital, revealed it had also acquired shares to force changes.
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Carmaker Volkswagen will shed up to 5,000 jobs between now and the end of 2023 as part of cost-cutting to finance its transition to electric vehicles, the company said Sunday. Up to 900 employees would opt for an early retirement scheme while others would leave the company as part of a gradual halting of their activities, it said. It did not give a precise figure for those employees, saying only that it would be in the lower end of a "four-digit number", an expression usually used to mean between 2,000 to 4,000.
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UK takeaway food delivery service Deliveroo confirmed its plans for an initial public offering on the London Main Market, hoping to raise GBP1 billion from the issue of new shares. Existing shares also will be offered. The IPO will include a "community offer" by which the company will allow UK-based customers apply for shares. Deliveroo also confirmed it will have two classes of ordinary shares: Class A shares and Class B shares. The Class B shares will, on admission, be held solely by Deliveroo Founder & Chief Executive Will Shu. The Class A shares will be entitled to one vote for every share, while the Class B shares will be entitled to 20 votes for every share held. The Class B shares will not be admitted to listing or to trading on any stock exchange. On the third anniversary of an IPO, Deliveroo noted, the Class B shares will automatically convert into Class A shares.
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MARKETS
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Share prices around the world were starting the new week with small, but broad-based, gains, ahead of monetary policy decisions by three of the big central banks. AstraZeneca shares were up 0.1%. Commenting on the Bank of England's likely announcement, due on Thursday, ING said: "Policymakers are likely to reiterate their fairly relaxed attitude to the rise in gilt yields when they meet this week. However we may see some tentative pushback against the idea of multiple rate hikes over the next two-to-three years, as markets are beginning to factor in." The US Federal Reserve issues its own decision on Wednesday, while the Bank of Japan follows on Friday.
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CAC 40: up 0.3% at 6,065.38
DAX 30: up 0.2% at 14,527.43
FTSE 100: up 0.3% at 6,781.33
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DJIA: called up 0.4%
S&P 500: called up 0.3%
Nasdaq Composite: called up 0.3%
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Hang Seng: closed up 0.3% at 28,833.76
Nikkei 225: closed up 0.2% at 29,766.97
S&P/ASX 200: closed up 0.1% at 6,773.00
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EUR: down at USD1.1924 (USD1.1940)
GBP: down at USD1.3922 (USD1.3985)
USD: firm at JPY109.08 (JPY109.00)
GOLD: up at USD1,729.70 per ounce (USD1,710.65)
OIL (Brent): soft at USD69.47 a barrel (USD69.63)
(currency and commodities changes since previous London equities close)
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ECONOMICS AND GENERAL
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China's industrial output and retail sales surged in the first two months of the year, official data showed, underscoring the country's recovery from the coronavirus pandemic. Industrial production spiked a forecast-busting 35% on-year, the biggest bounce in decades, while retail sales also beat expectations with 34% growth. But the National Bureau of Statistics said the latest surge was in part due to distortions from last year's "low base in the same period". Both indicators plunged in the early months of 2020 after Covid-19 surfaced in central China and spread rapidly around the country. But the world's second-largest economy became the first to bounce back after imposing strict lockdowns and virus control measures, clocking a full-year economic growth of 2.3%.
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The much-anticipated report from the international mission to Wuhan to investigate Covid-19's origins is set to be published this week, following intense US and Chinese pressure over its contents. The coronavirus pandemic has engulfed the planet, killing more than 2.6 million people and shredding the global economy since the first cases emerged in the Chinese city in December 2019. In the 15 months since then, science has miraculously developed multiple vaccines to fight the disease – but the mystery at the very heart of the pandemic remains unsolved. It was only in January 2021 that a team of international experts assembled by the World Health Organization finally visited Wuhan to start a month-long investigation on the ground. The WHO mission was aimed at finding clues as to how the virus originally jumped from animals into humans. Now, another month on after leaving Wuhan, the team and its Chinese counterparts are set to issue their findings – which should help to identify the most likely pathways, while relegating other less probable hypotheses.
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German Chancellor Angela Merkel's conservative Christian Democrats suffered historic losses in two key state elections that acted as referendums on the nation's handling of the coronavirus crisis. While the CDU vote slumped to a record low of 24% in the south-western state of Baden-Wuerttemberg, the party's support in neighbouring Rhineland-Palatinate dropped to 27%, according to exit polls by public broadcasters ZDF and ARD. Both results were the worst recorded for the CDU in the two states. Sunday's votes are expected to help determine Merkel's successor as well as set the stage for a slew of regional and state polls across the country in the run-up to September's national poll.
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Amid reports that the richest Americans have grown far richer during the pandemic year, US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said on Sunday the Biden administration had yet to decide on imposing a new wealth tax. "That's something that we haven't decided yet," Yellen said on ABC's "This Week" program. She said that President Joe Biden "hasn't proposed a wealth tax, but he has proposed that corporations and wealthy individuals should pay more in order to meet the needs of the economy, the spending we need to do." Senator Elizabeth Warren, a liberal Democrat, has called for an annual tax of two percent on every dollar of people's wealth above USD50 million, and three percent on every dollar above USD1 billion.
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UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson has insisted that the UK will "beat Covid" in the coming months. Johnson said that "in the not-too-distant future" businesses would be able to reopen and people would once again be able to hold family and friends. With the UK vaccination programme having "roared into life in every corner of this country", he said restrictions that have been in place across the UK for much of the last year could soon be removed. Johnson said: "In the coming months we will beat Covid – we will vaccinate everyone in our country and we will be able to remove restrictions. In the not-too-distant future, we will be able to reopen businesses, see friends in each other's houses and hold our loved ones again."
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By Tom Waite; thomaslwaite@alliancenews.com
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