LONDON (Alliance News) - The following is a summary of top news stories Tuesday.
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COMPANIES
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AstraZeneca said Amgen has terminated their co-development and commercialisation deal for monoclonal antibody brodalumab after observing "suicidal ideation and behaviour events" in the programme that might result in "restrictive labelling". Brodalumab was developed by Amgen and was in development for moderate-to-severe plaque psoriasis, psoriatic arthritis, and axial spondyloarthritis. The two companies entered into a collaboration deal in April 2012 for five monoclonal antibodies from Amgen's clinical inflammation portfolio, including brodalumab. AstraZeneca said it will confirm its decision on the future development of brodalumab as soon as possible based on further review of the data.
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Royal Dutch Shell executives have said the oil reserves the company is hoping to find in the Arctic are unlikely to brought into production before the 2030s due to the difficulty involved in securing environmental approvals, the Financial Times reports. Marvin Odum, head of oil and gas production for Shell in the Americas, told the FT the company's success or failure this year and in 2016 in making a significant discovery will be critical for the future of oil development in the Arctic region.
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Cineworld Group reported a rise in revenue in the first 19 weeks of 2015 as sales grew in each of its divisions, and said it is confident it will meet market expectations for the full year. The cinema operator said total sales in the 19 weeks to May 14 grew 26.8% on the year before, with the box office growing 23.8%, retail rising 27.9% and other income up 47.1%. Cineworld said that all the territories in which it operates showed year-on-year growth, with the exception of Slovakia which had a small decline. Total revenue in the UK and Ireland grew 8.8%.
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Nostrum Oil & Gas said its earnings and revenue dropped in the first quarter of 2015 as the low oil price offset a rise in production for the Kazakhstan-focused oil and gas company. Nostrum said its earnings before interest, taxation, depreciation and amortisation in the first quarter to the end of March was USD48 million, down 41% from the USD81.5 million it posted in the fourth quarter of 2014. The earnings were dragged lower by a 38% fall in revenue in the quarter, down to USD100 million from USD161.3 million, though Nostrum said additional revenue of around USD13 million from the quarter will be recognised in the second quarter from export gas sales.
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Software company Micro Focus International reiterated its full-year guidance on a pro-forma basis including its acquisition of The Attachmate Group Inc, saying the result "reflects a strong finish" to its recently ended financial year.
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Ryanair Holdings shares surged after the Irish budget carrier said its net profit for the financial year to the end of March beat its upgraded guidance on the back of stronger revenue and higher customer numbers and as its load factor improved. The airline said its profit after tax for the year to March 31 was EUR867 million, up 66% from the EUR523 million reported a year earlier and ahead of the upgraded guidance it issued in February for net profit of EUR840 million to EUR850 million. That guidance upgrade was the third the group had made since its half-year results were published in November, as it was boosted by falling fuel prices which eventually resulted in its net margin improving to 15% from 10% a year earlier.
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Secure Income REIT said it has exchanged contracts for the sale of the freehold on the Madame Tussauds site in Marylebone Road in central London for GBP332.5 million. Secure Income REIT is selling the freehold on the site to Fubon Life Insurance Co, the Taiwan-based life insurer. The property is let to Merlin Attractions Operations Ltd, a subsidiary of FTSE 100-listed Merlin Entertainments.
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Stonegate, the owner of the Slug & Lettuce and Yates's pub chains, is understood to have been sounding out bankers about a London stock market listing, Sky News reported. TDR Capital, the private equity owner of Stonegate, has started talks for a float which could emerge in 2016, Sky said, with the company set to be valued at around GBP1 billion.
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MARKETS
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UK stocks are trading slightly but broadly lower having opened flat to higher, with the heavily weighted oil and banking sectors weighing on blue-chip and mid-cap indices, while concerns about Greece's financial position drag down the euro.
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FTSE 100: down 0.5% at 6,997.02
FTSE 250: down 0.2% at 18,159.34
AIM ALL-SHARE: down 0.1% at 766.32
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The euro hit a one-month low of USD1.0883 against the dollar.
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GBP: down at USD1.5383
EUR: down at USD1.0898
GOLD: down at USD1194.18 per ounce
OIL (Brent): down at USD65.04 a barrel
(changes since end of previous GMT day)
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ECONOMICS AND GENERAL
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A Greek government spokesman played down suggestions by two leading cabinet ministers that the country is about to default on its debt, saying all efforts were being taken to repay a looming IMF loan on schedule. Gabriel Sakellaridis said Greece would maintain repayments to its EU-IMF creditors for as long as possible. He also rejected the idea of possible capital controls that would restrict money transfers and access to savings. On Sunday, the country's interior minister had said Greece does not have the money to make a repayment to the IMF by June, and New Democracy MP Dora Bakogiannis had said on national television that the government may be forced to impose capital controls in banks if it fails to reach a deal with international creditors before the upcoming three-day long Pentecost weekend.
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British Prime Minister David Cameron and European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker on Monday began renegotiating the terms of Britain's EU membership ahead of an in-out referendum. Cameron hosted a dinner for Juncker at Chequers, the prime minister's official residence in southern England, officials said. Cameron is to travel to several European capitals this week, including Paris and Berlin, to push his case for reform. He is expected to give more details to his plans for the referendum in a speech to the state opening of parliament on Wednesday.
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Meanwhile, Cameron told Russian President Vladimir Putin on Monday that the two nations must cooperate to implement the Minsk ceasefire agreement on Ukraine despite "deep differences" between them. Cameron told Putin by telephone that "they would continue to have deep differences but that the priority now must be to deliver full implementation of the Minsk agreement," his spokesman said.
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UK MAY CBI RETAIL SALES BALANCE +51%, CONSENSUS 20%
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The Chinese government has decided to cut import tariffs on consumer goods such as cosmetics, shoes, clothes and diapers in June, in a bid to boost domestic consumption amid slowing economic growth. Import taxes on some products will be lowered by an average over 50%, starting June 1, the Ministry of Finance said in a statement on Monday. Tariffs on imported clothes will be slashed 7-10% from 14-23%. The levy on imported cosmetics will be reduced to 2% from 5% and the tax on imported shoes and boots is set to be halved to 12%. Import tariffs on diapers will be cut to 2% from 7.5%.
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Japan posted a merchandise trade deficit of JPY53.44 billion in April, the Ministry of Finance said on Monday. The headline figure beat expectations for a deficit of JPY386.8 billion following the upwardly revised JPY50 billion surplus in March (originally JPY3.3 billion). Exports climbed 8.0% on year - also topping forecasts for an increase of 6.0% following the 8.5% jump in the previous month.
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Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi hit back at criticisms of his country's security forces over the fall of the western city of Ramadi to Islamic State jihadists. A day after US Defence Secretary Ash Carter said Iraqi forces had "showed no will to fight" over the capital of al-Anbar province, al-Abadi said that the city would be recaptured "within days." The jihadists had only captured "a small area inside Ramadi," while government forces had gained ground outside the city, the prime minister told the BBC.
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A tornado and torrential rains hit northern Mexico as well as the US states of Texas and Oklahoma Monday, killing at least 18 people and leaving thousand of homes damaged, news reports said. Thirteen people were killed in Ciudad Acuna on the border with the US by the tornado, and about 1,500 houses were destroyed, the mayor of the town told Mexican media. A further 5 people were killed over the border in the US states of Texas and Oklahoma by floods on Saturday and Sunday, local media reported.
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Hundreds of anti-government protesters took to the streets of Burundian capital Bujumbura on Monday after an opposition politician was killed at the weekend. The government has denied involvement in the killing of Zedi Feruzi, leader of the small opposition party Union for Peace and Democracy, but demonstrators were not convinced.
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