Q and A: Why has there been no statement from AstraZeneca? April 22, 2014 Q I want to know what’s going on at AstraZeneca – can’t someone make the company tell us? A Yes. The Takeover Panel is in charge of the City Code on Takeovers and Mergers, which tries to make sure shareholders get a fair deal during a bid. It has a clear set of rules that [...]
GlaxoSmithKline trades assets with rival Novartis April 22, 2014 FTSE 100 drug giant GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) yesterday unveiled a complex string of asset deals with Swiss rival Novartis in a move set to deliver a £4bn windfall for shareholders. GSK closed up 5.2 per cent in trading yesterday after investors cheered the three-part transaction, which will see the business sell its cancer drugs offering to [...]
Analyst Views: What does the deal mean for GlaxoSmithKline? April 22, 2014 SAVVAS NEOPHYTOU | PANMURE GORDONGSK has underperformed in recent weeks, impacted mainly by missed upgrading opportunities from the pipeline. This transaction shows management will not sit idly by waiting for the pipeline to mature but will take brave decisions to unlock shareholder value. Managing to get up to seven times prospective revenues for its oncology [...]
Bottom Line: Big pharma is ready to move April 22, 2014 FOR the last few years, big pharma firms have been on the back foot. With expiring patents and drooping profits hanging over their heads, the chief executives of the drugs giants have been hunkered down, working out how to cut costs and find new growth. As of yesterday, they seem to have decided that consolidation [...]
RBS to trim £65m from its cost base by cutting contractor pay April 22, 2014 RBS is reducing contractors’ pay by 10 per cent from the end of this month as its cost-cutting programme gets underway, City A.M. has learned. The bank wants to make savings of £1bn by the end of the year, and this move should contribute up to £65m towards that goal. All of the roughly 11,000 [...]
Barclays stops trading in most commodities April 22, 2014 BARCLAYS is shutting down most of its commodities trading business after new regulations made it harder to make money in the sector, the bank said yesterday. It will no longer trade base metals, agricultural products or most energy commodities. But the bank will continue to trade precious metals, as well as index products and some [...]
BNY Mellon’s profits jump on rising markets April 22, 2014 BUOYANT equity markets and rising fee incomes boosted BNY Mellon’s profits in the first quarter, the US custodian bank reported yesterday. The bank made a profit of $926m (£550m) in the three-month period, up 12 per cent on the $825m it made in the same period of 2013. Fee revenues increased one per cent to [...]
Financial services companies are registering more new products April 22, 2014 FINANCIAL firms are launching twice as many new products as they did during the depths of the debt crisis, with the number of freshly trademarked products heading back towards record levels. According to data from City law firm RPC, there were 3,396 financial services trademarks registered during 2013, exactly double the 1,698 that were announced [...]
Card Factory to deliver £700m float in London April 22, 2014 CARD Factory boss Richard Hayes said yesterday that it hopes to emulate the success of other value retailers such as Poundland after announcing plans for float that could value the group at around £700m. The budget greetings chain, which has 700 stores, intends to raise £90m through an initial public offering that will allow its [...]
Top stockbroker hits out as retail investors face flotation shut-out April 22, 2014 ONE of the biggest names in retail stockbroking has described the dearth of new floats open to retail investors as “deplorable”. The outburst by Keith Loudon, senior partner at Redmayne Bentley, came as The Card Factory announced it is coming to market via an issue of shares only initially open to institutions. Loudon has also [...]