Member Info for Grayling

That is rubbish. It is AZN who are considering a bid to take over Medivation! "Drug industry takeover talk did the rounds again on Thursday as AstraZeneca’s name resurfaced in rumours about potential bids for US group Medivation. Prostate cancer treatment firm Medivation has taken on JP Morgan to handle a number of approaches from rivals since the start of the year, according to sources cited in reports.French group Sanofi is said to have Medivation on its list of possible targets and market gossips reckoned AstraZeneca and Switzerland’s Roche were also mulling possible bids for the US group, which has declined to comment. An AZ spokeswoman said: ‘We don’t comment on speculation.’

I doubt it as GSK have sold their oncology portfolio, so would have no need of him. AZN o the other hand can ill afford to lose him as cancer immunotherapy is a major plank of their pipeline. Still if you were a mere AZN division head and major Pharma came along with an offer of head of research (Global) it would be a difficult gig to turn down.

There will be a special dividend included in the final strike price when takeover by Liberty Global goes through. You can find out how the numbers break down by looking at the RNS announcements periodically issued as "offer update". Basically, at the moment keep an eye on the LG SP on NASDAQ as the more this goes up the more the offer for CWC is worth. A lot of UK shareholders bailed out in the low 60s as the CWC price slid recently, but LG has now recovered and thus CWC has risen with it. Its a balancing act with your decision to hold/get out based on your willingness to hold US paper in LG post TO (plus some cash) or sell before then, take the money and run.

Good news, but more so for BAE Systems who got £300M as opposed to RR's £79M. I hold both, so no complaints at all.

French drugmaker Sanofi has poached one of AstraZeneca’s top scientists to be its new research head in another high-profile departure for the British drugmaker. Sanofi said on Tuesday that Yong-Jun Liu had been appointed as head of research with effect from April 1. Liu, a specialist in immunology with more than 250 published articles in leading academic journals, currently heads up research at AstraZeneca’s MedImmune biotechnology division, a position he has held since 2014. Prior to that he led programmes at Baylor Research Institute and the MD Anderson Cancer Center, where he was founding director of the Cancer Immunology Research Institute.

Thanks Gerry557 for posting the Safran piece from Bloomberg I had not seen that, nor was I aware of the opportunities and problems elsewhere (P&W cooling issues) and Safran's own failure to meet market expectations. I always thought this kind of stuff was what this board was for.

Yawn.

Further to the restructuring of the group under the stewardship of Warren East, Rolls Royce has just announced that it is further reducing its senior manager count by 150 under plans revealed to staff on Thursday. Sad to see jobs go, but this is the price that has to be paid as the company seeks to turn itself around.

Unfortunately, one of the brokers that can move a stock price. 10th March, RR slides as Goldman Sachs cuts its rating on the group to Neutral from Buy.

Sorry Riddock but Brimstone missiles are nothing to do with Rolls Royce at all. They are manufactured by BMDA in which BAE systems of the UK have a 37.3% stake and RR has zilch. The RR reference was to the "unmanned combat aircraft project" in which RR might be a partner but that is way in the future and may never happen (particularly if we leave the EU), as opposed to having a direct bearing on the bottom line now.

Any doubts that the city rates the new board member very highly now? Maybe Woodford will even buy back in!

You are missing the point completely. RR have not made ANY errors on the engineering front whatsoever although some elements of their commercial strategy as to which markets to stay in (or get out of) are open to question. Their problem has been in the internal financial audit and the way they book profits (and projected profits) in the complex sales vs aftercare income streams. Thus financial (or more correctly commercial) expertise is exactly what they need if only to improve communications with the markets. The FD is the one who should be sweating over this appointment not East.

We are down with the herd at the moment, but nothing RR specific by way of negative pressure on the SP as a direct result of this announcement. At least the guy has been in senior positions in other companies and could hardly be described as lightweight.

The market seems to like this news and I am sure it will play well over the pond. I have to admit the SP has recovered much more quickly than I had anticipated.

Glad I held on for the LG SP recovery. Now getting into interesting territory!

Who actually holds this share? People who are "locked in" having bought much higher and waiting for BE? It is pretty clear from today's results and the general trend that it will be many years before RBS is in a similar position to Lloyds's bank today, so why bother holding? Even if you take a hit (as I did many years ago selling at 209p) I have made good my loss and more by reinvesting the RBS cash elsewhere (AZN,NG. & BA.). To me this is dead money for at least the next 2-5 years and no dividend either, so why bother?

DURVALUMAB granted Breakthrough Therapy designation by US FDA for treatment of patients with PD-L1 positive urothelial bladder cancer The Breakthrough Therapy designation is designed to expedite the development of new drugs which are intended to treat a serious condition and which have shown encouraging early clinical results, which demonstrate substantial improvement on a clinically significant endpoint over available therapies or when there is significant unmet medical need.

LGs spurt up has certainly resulted in todays shift for CWC. Let us hope the rally in LG continues! The tie up between LG/VOD in Holland does not seem to have had the same effect on the VOD SP, which I also hold but may be the continuing saga of the Indian tax issue is holding their price back.

What was that loud bang? Could be the sound of short positions being closed :-)

David Smith (CFO) has made a purchase of 8,333 shares at 600p today. OK ~£50K is not a huge amount for him to invest, but not exactly peanuts either.