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(Alliance News) - The following is a summary of top news stories Tuesday.
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COMPANIES
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UDG Healthcare said it has agreed to be bought by Clayton Dubilier & Rice, after the US private equity firm returned to the table with an improved takeover offer. UDG Healthcare said it has agreed final terms with CD&R on an offer that values the Dublin-based private healthcare provider at GBP2.76 billion. Under the deal terms, UDG shareholders will be entitled to receive 1,080 pence for each share, up 5.6% from the previous offer of 1,023p per share. The stock was up 0.5% early Tuesday in London at 1,071.00p. It is up 37% so far in 2021. UDG said CD&R has the support of 11% of shareholders, including Allianz Global Investors and Kabouter Management, for the final offer. Other institutional shareholders of UDG also have indicated their willingness to vote in favour of the deal. UDG directors unanimously recommended the acquisition to shareholders and called a meeting for July 22.
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Housebuilder Barratt Developments said it has appointed Mike Scott as an executive director and chief financial officer. The date he will join Barratt is currently being finalised and will be announced in due course. Scott, who is currently CFO of smaller peer Countryside Properties, has extensive experience in the housebuilding sector, having joined Countryside as financial controller in 2014, Barratt said. Countryside Properties noted the announcement, saying it was commencing a search for Scott's successor and will confirm his leaving date in due course.
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Standard Life Aberdeen said a wholly owned subsidiary netted GBP652 million from the sale of 100.8 million shares in HDFC Life, a 4.99% stake in the Indian operation. Standard Life Aberdeen's remaining holding HDFC Life is 3.89%, worth GBP530 million.
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Atlantic Investments Holdings, trading as Bridgepoint, has outlined its plans to forge ahead with a London initial public offering. The private equity firm - which was spun out of NatWest in 2000 - is looking to float at least a quarter of its shares to raise around GBP300 million from the IPO to fund growth plans, boost cash in its own funds, and pay down debts. On admission, the middle market private assets investor will be valued around GBP2 billion.
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CC Capital Partners said it doesn't intend to make a takeover offer for office space provider IWG. The announcement came in response to a Sky News story late Monday that said IWG has held secret talks with the New York-based private equity firm over a GBP4 billion buyout. IWG shares were up 1.8% in London on Tuesday, giving back a bigger earlier gain.
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Toyota Motor said sales and production of its cars increased in May amid a recovery of both the Japanese and international markets from last year's initial pandemic impact. The Tokyo-based automaker said global sales - including subsidiaries Daihatsu Motor Co Ltd and Hino Motors Ltd - were up 48% from the previous year in May to 904,670 units. Global production of Toyota-branded cars was 671,097 units in May, up 83% from a year before. When including Daihatsu and Hino, production grew by 88% year-on-year to 770,144 units.
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Carmaker Honda Motor reported an increase in vehicle production and sales in May and the first five months of 2021. Shizuoka, Japan-headquartered Honda said total world production more than doubled in the month of May to 285,856 vehicles when compared with a year before, with output in Japan up 50% to 23,643. Total sales in the Japanese market more than doubled year-on-year in May to 38,494 units. Exports from Japan were 46% higher, at 3,497 units in May.
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A US judge on Monday dismissed a blockbuster antitrust suit against Facebook filed last year by federal and state regulators, saying the lawsuit failed to "plausibly" establish that the social network had created a monopoly. Judge James Boasberg of the US District Court of Washington DC dismissed the case filed in December by the Federal Trade Commission and more than 40 states, which could have rolled back Facebook's acquisition of Instagram and the messaging platform WhatsApp. The lawsuit "failed to plead enough facts to plausibly establish a necessary element...that Facebook has monopoly power in the market for personal social networking services," the judge said in a 53-page opinion, while allowing authorities the opportunity to refile the case with revisions. In lawsuits filed in December which were consolidated in federal court, US and state officials called for the divestment of Instagram and WhatsApp, arguing that Facebook had acted to "entrench and maintain its monopoly to deny consumers the benefits of competition."
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JPMorgan Chase, Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs said Monday they plan to raise their quarterly payouts, after the Federal Reserve last week released the results of its latest stress tests. Morgan Stanley will double its quarterly payouts to USD0.70 per share from USD0.35, from the third quarter of the year. It also upped its share buyback programme to USD12 billion through to June 30 of next year. JPMorgan, also effective from the third quarter, will raise its payout by 11% to USD1.00 from USD0.90. "The firm continues to be authorized to repurchase common shares under its existing common share repurchase programme previously approved by the board of directors," JPMorgan added. Goldman Sachs plans to raise its dividend to USD2.00 per share from USD1.25.
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MARKETS
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European markets were outperforming Asia's negative lead and a mixed opening call for Wall Street. A gauge of eurozone economic sentiment rose to its second highest reading on record at 117.9 points in June from 114.5 in May. "We have clearly entered the 'rebound phase' of the recovery, which should see fast GDP growth over the summer months," commented Dutch bank ING, adding: "The reopening of services has given a big boost to the eurozone economy in the second quarter. The mood among consumers and businesses is exuberant, which translates to better expectations for consumption and investment."
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CAC 40: up 0.3% at 6,579.11
DAX 30: up 0.9% at 15,688.67
FTSE 100: up 0.2% at 7,083.41
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Hang Seng: closed down 0.9% at 28,994.10
Nikkei 225: closed down 0.8% at 28,812.61
S&P/ASX 200: closed up 0.1% at 7,301.20
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DJIA: called up 0.2%
S&P 500: called marginally lower, down 0.50 point
Nasdaq Composite: called down 0.1%
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EUR: down at USD1.1910 (USD1.1932)
GBP: down at USD1.3859 (USD1.3884)
USD: flat at JPY110.55 (JPY110.53)
Gold: down at USD1,771.25 per ounce (USD1,779.56)
Oil (Brent): up at USD76.24 a barrel (USD75.32)
(currency and commodities changes since previous London equities close)
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ECONOMICS AND GENERAL
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UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson and his new Health Secretary Sajid Javid have confirmed their intention for July 19 to mark the end of England's lockdown restrictions. Javid resisted pressure from Tory MPs to bring forward the date of Step 4 of the road map, but he said there was "no reason" why the July 19 deadline would not be met. The prime minister signalled that the "terminus" date would mean going "back to life as it was before Covid as far as possible". In his first Commons statement since replacing Matt Hancock, Javid told MPs: "There remains a big task ahead of us to restore our freedoms – freedoms that, save for the greatest of circumstances, no government should ever wish to curtail. "So my task is to help return the economic and cultural life that makes this country so great while of course protecting life and our NHS."
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About 10 million Australians have been ordered into lockdown as Covid-19 spreads across the country, after Brisbane on Tuesday became the fourth major city to issue stay-at-home orders. The three-day snap lockdown for Brisbane, starting on Tuesday evening, comes on top of similar orders imposed in Sydney, Perth and Darwin residents in recent days. "These are tough decisions," Queensland state Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk said. "We are having lockdowns in major cities because the overseas arrivals are bringing the virus here." Brisbane's surrounding coastal regions and the small northern city of Townsville are also subject to the latest order, after an unvaccinated hospital worker spent up to 10 days travelling around Queensland while infectious.
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UK house prices continued to surge in June with the highest rate of annual growth since November 2004, figures from mortgage lender Nationwide showed. On an annual basis, the Nationwide house price index jumped 13% in June, rising from 11% growth in May. The reading missed the market estimate, cited by FXStreet, of 14%. On a monthly basis, house prices rose 0.4% in June, slowing from 1.7% in May. The print missed the market forecast of 0.7%. The average UK house price stood at GBP245,432 in June, up from GBP242,832 in May. The domestic housing market continued to benefit from borrowing costs at near record lows and the UK government's stamp duty holiday on purchases.
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The OPEC+ group of oil-producing countries will meet on Thursday and are expected to agree to boost production in August in order to meet demand and damp recent price rises. While improvement in demand drove the group's most recent rises in production, now price levels will also be a guiding force behind the club's decisions. After demand dropped when the coronavirus pandemic broke out last year and crude prices briefly turned negative, the club led by Saudi Arabia and Russia imposed sharp production cuts in order to raise prices. The 13 members of OPEC and their 10 allies in the OPEC+ grouping were rewarded by seeing prices for the two contracts of reference, Brent and WTI, recover to around USD75 per barrel, levels not seen since October 2018. However that strategy has worked almost too well and the group is currently following a policy of cautiously turning the taps back on. Russia is expected to favour increasing output, as it has done at several recent OPEC+ meetings.
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Unemployment in Japan rose in May both on a monthly and annual basis, figures from the Japan Statistics Bureau showed. There were more employed persons in Japan in May than a year ago, up by 11,000 people, or 0.2%, totalling 66.7 million. The number of unemployed people rose by 13,000, or 6.6%, year-on-year to 2.1 million. The unemployment rate stood at 3.1% up 0.2 percentage point when compared to May 2020. The employment rate, meanwhile, improved by 0.2 percentage point to 60%.
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US President Joe Biden reassured Israel's president, ahead of a visit by new Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett, that the US will not permit Iran to develop nuclear weapons. "Iran will never get a nuclear weapon on my watch," Biden told President Reuven Rivlin in the White House. After the talks, Rivlin told reporters that he was "very much satisfied" by Biden's comments on Iran and said Israel and Washington "have to cooperate." In his comments, Biden also dismissed congressional critics who have questioned his legal authority in ordering air strikes against Iranian-backed militias accused of attacking US personnel in Syria and Iraq.
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The UN Security Council on Tuesday will hold its first formal public meeting on cybersecurity, addressing the growing threat of hacks to countries' key infrastructure, an issue Joe Biden recently raised with his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin. At their summit earlier this month in Geneva, the US president set out red lines for Russia, which is often accused of being behind major hacks. In this case, he laid out 16 "untouchable" entities, ranging from the energy sector to water distribution. "This is the generic list of critical infrastructure which every country has," said one European ambassador who specializes in cybersecurity. "In the United Nations first committee, we already have agreed in 2015, which is six years ago, that we are refraining from malicious cyber activities against each other's critical infrastructures as UN member states."
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South Africa's top court handed former president Jacob Zuma a 15-month jail term for contempt of court following his refusal to appear before graft investigators. "The Constitutional Court can do nothing but conclude that Zuma is guilty of the crime of contempt of court," judge Sisi Khampepe said. Zuma, 79, is accused of enabling the plunder of state coffers during his nearly nine-year stay in office.
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By Tom Waite; thomaslwaite@alliancenews.com
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