DIRS.INFO The most relevant business & tech news

☆ Bayer’s rude health lays better path for breakup
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-11 | by ( Aimee Donnellan | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +4 min

Activists like Jeff Ubben’s Inclusive Capital Partners may now, however, be in a better position to push for a breakup. Smaller peer Bluebell Capital Partners has also bought in recently. Using UBS forecasts, they would be worth 50 billion euros and 88 billion euros respectively. Its smaller consumer drugs division might fetch another 18 billion euros, using peer Reckitt Benckiser’s (RKT.L) 12 times multiple. Add them up, take off debt, pension liabilities and a further 6 billion euros of future Roundup litigation costs, and Bayer’s equity could be worth nearly 110 billion euros.

☆ Smarter taxes could ease UK productivity crisis
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-09 | by ( Francesco Guerrera | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +4 min

Britain’s sluggish productivity – the amount of output per hour worked – deters investment and limits growth, in turn depressing wages. After keeping pace with other developed countries for decades, UK productivity has grown by 0.3% a year since 2008. That is a third of the 0.9% averaged by G7 members, and well below the 1.2% rate recorded by the United States, according to figures from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. In 2021, gross fixed capital formation, a measure of investment, accounted for 17% of UK GDP, compared to 24% in France and 21% in the United States, according to the World Bank. Despite a long-standing scheme for research and development, UK businesses still only fund 55% of total R&D spending, below the 63% of the United States, according to a Cambridge University study.

☆ Stellantis keeps feet on ground in air taxi punt
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-05 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

LONDON, Jan 5 (Reuters Breakingviews) - Pumping $150 million into a loss-making flying-car company looks like an odd use of money for a carmaker. Stellantis (STLA.MI) Chief Executive Carlos Tavares has plenty to worry about already, like a looming recession and growing competition from Chinese giants. Yet the auto group’s deal with $513 million Archer Aviation (ACHR.N) looks like a savvy bet. It also locks in secure funding at a time when public and venture capital investors are increasingly jittery. They do not reflect the views of Reuters News, which, under the Trust Principles, is committed to integrity, independence, and freedom from bias.

☆ Carmakers will reverse out of public markets
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-28 | by ( Neil Unmack | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +3 min

Shares of carmakers like Stellantis (STLA.MI) and BMW (BMWG.DE) are suffering, as investors fret over a potential recession and falling car sales. It’s an opportunity for deep-pocketed funds or backers to steer them out of public markets altogether. There are risks: Carmakers are loath to borrow too much, for fear of damaging their financial services divisions. Assume a private equity buyer teamed up with the Quandt clan and acquired minority investors’ shares at a 25% premium, using debt, for 37 billion euros. If public markets dislike European carmakers, there may be a private market solution.

LONDON/NEW YORK, Dec 22 (Reuters Breakingviews) - Private credit has grown into a $1.3 trillion mountain over the last decade. When banks stopped lending to private equity firms in 2022, private credit firms stayed active. High-yield loans issued by banks and then sold on to investors in the market fell 80% in the first nine months of 2022, according to Fitch Ratings. Specialist private lenders, however, had some $390 billion of spare capital to spend, according to Preqin data. Investors who funded private lenders may be in for a shock.

☆ Barbarians at the check-in desk
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-22 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

While Vivion’s equity is unlisted, Muddy Waters was betting against its debt. The price of bonds due in 2024 fell to 72% of face value after Block’s report, according to Refinitiv data. Vivion contends that Muddy Waters has overestimated the number of vacant properties, and that its shareholders have put cash in the company in recent years, not taken it out. If so, though, Vivion could always step up its purchase of its own debt at the current low prices. They do not reflect the views of Reuters News, which, under the Trust Principles, is committed to integrity, independence, and freedom from bias.

☆ Brenntag M&A gambit may prompt its own breakup
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-20 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

LONDON, Dec 20 (Reuters Breakingviews) - Chemicals group Brenntag’s (BNRGn.DE) bold dealmaking foray has attracted the attentions of an activist. PrimeStone Capital is calling on the 9 billion euro German group to scrap a potential merger with U.S. peer Univar Solutions (UNVR.N). Brenntag’s other shareholders hardly seem enamoured of the deal: its shares lost some 10% on the day it was announced. The problem is that PrimeStone’s other idea, a breakup of Brenntag, also looks viable. Brenntag meshes together the humdrum business of transporting chemicals with one that serves customers in more specialised sectors like pharmaceuticals and nutrition.

☆ Big Pharma will find right formula for M&A binge
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-20 | by ( Aimee Donnellan | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +3 min

The year 2022 was relatively thin for pharma M&A, with deals worth nearly $66 billion being announced by early December – 60% below the 9-year average, according to Refinitiv data; 2023 will be better. It helps that drug companies are relatively healthy, with debt around just 1.6 times forecast EBITDA in 2023, according to Berenberg analysts. Seagen (SGEN.O), for example, worth $22 billion in early December, has fought off Merck & Co (MRK.N). That puts Big Pharma in an ideal negotiating position. CONTEXT NEWSGlobal pharmaceutical companies spent nearly $66 billion on takeovers in 2022, according to data from Refinitiv as of Dec. 7.

☆ Bond-buying scars will open European can of worms
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-16 | by ( Pierre Briancon | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +3 min

LONDON, Dec 16 (Reuters Breakingviews) - The euro zone will soon have to pay for a decade of European Central Bank largesse. The first is to use provisions accumulated by national central banks over the past decade. But the central banks had wide differences in their approach to provisioning, meaning some may be left weaker than others. A central bank cannot be declared bankrupt, but operating with little or negative equity could hurt its credibility. And even if central banks don’t penalise them, they face the added risk that governments may tax them instead.

☆ Danske slap confirms pay-what-you-can principle
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-14 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

That’s one takeaway from the $2 billion slap it delivered late on Tuesday to Denmark’s Danske Bank (DANSKE.CO), which pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit bank fraud. Danske’s Estonian unit processed $160 billion of potentially illicit payments through U.S. banks on behalf of foreign customers, including Russians, the DOJ said. BNP Paribas (BNPP.PA) in 2014, by contrast, agreed to pay roughly $9 billion for moving $8.8 billion for sanctioned clients. In Danske’s case, the bill is roughly 1% of suspicious flows, whereas BNP’s was around 100% of illicit payments. Danske will be able to keep using U.S. correspondent banks for dollar payments, according to a person familiar with the matter.

☆ ECB will have to stay laggard in bond-buying exit
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-13 | by ( Francesco Guerrera | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +4 min

Rising yields and a still frail euro zone mean that Europe’s so-called quantitative tightening (QT) should be slow. If it stopped reinvesting all maturing debt from March, its bond portfolio would shrink by 287 billion euros next year. If bond yields do spike, the ECB can step in with an emergency bond-buying programme, called the Transmission Protection Instrument. The real dangers of a disorderly exit mean the ECB has little choice but to remove the punchbowl slowly. The shift is a reversal of nearly a decade of monetary stimulus by the ECB as the euro zone went through several crises.

☆ Microsoft plugs into LSEG data drive
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-12 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

LONDON, Dec 12 (Reuters Breakingviews) - LSEG (LSEG.L) has enlisted Microsoft (MSFT.O) to upgrade its data business. First, LSEG will shift its data platform to Microsoft’s Azure cloud business, spending at least 2.3 billion pounds ($2.8 billion) over a decade. Potentially more significant is LSEG’s plan to offer data and analytical tools through Microsoft products, including the Teams messaging platform. It also allows LSEG to charge customers for data based on how much they consume. LSEG shares rose 3% on Monday morning.

☆ Banks’ buyout-debt machine defies quick jumpstart
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-08 | by ( Neil Unmack | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +4 min

Asset managers like Blackstone (BX.N) or Axa (AXAF.PA) pick the underlying loans, while investment banks underwrite the CLO securities and place them with credit investors. Many of the bonds that come out the other side get an ultra-safe AAA credit rating. The combination of higher funding costs and slower private-equity dealmaking has pushed sales of European CLO securities down 67% year-on-year, according to JPMorgan analysts. So, for example, 70% of the whole portfolio would have to default, with the creditors recovering just half of their money, before AAA tranches see a loss. That means banks’ biggest CLO risk is an even sharper slowdown, not a blowup.

☆ DWS’s best valuation fix is out of CEO’s hands
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-07 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

LONDON, Dec 7 (Reuters Breakingviews) - DWS (DWSG.DE) is thriving but not getting much credit. It is valued at less than 10 times next year’s earnings, based on analysts’ estimates, versus Schroders (SDR.L) on a multiple of nearly 13. Hoops, himself a former Deutsche executive, admits the arrangement may hurt the stock. For now, Hoops will have to just fix what he can. They do not reflect the views of Reuters News, which, under the Trust Principles, is committed to integrity, independence, and freedom from bias.

☆ ASOS bonus tweak stores up longer-term woes
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-01 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +1 min

On Tuesday, the 653 million pound fast fashion retailer changed the targets for José Antonio Ramos Calamonte’s bonus next year. The portion of the up to 1.1 million pound payout linked to revenue growth will fall to 15% from 30%. Meanwhile the share linked to cash flow has been upgraded to 35%, and cost cuts will also be rewarded. With the years of rapid growth over, ASOS may look even more vulnerable to a takeover. They do not reflect the views of Reuters News, which, under the Trust Principles, is committed to integrity, independence, and freedom from bias.

☆ Eni’s $6 bln Neptune swoop will be a haggle-fest
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-01 | by ( George Hay | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +3 min

LONDON, Dec 1 (Reuters Breakingviews) - Eni (ENI.MI) is hunting for a bargain in the North Sea. Italy’s $52 billion oil major is mulling a bid for oil and gas producer Neptune Energy, Reuters reported on Wednesday, for an equity value of around $5 billion to $6 billion. Given Neptune’s owners CVC Capital Partners, Carlyle (CG.O) and China Investment Corporation last year wanted to list the business for $10 billion, Eni may have to haggle a bit. The UK government recently extended its windfall tax on North Sea drillers to 2028. And the Italian group’s own North Sea expertise may help it argue that the mooted offer price is generous.

☆ Rate shock calls time on funky debt boom
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-29 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

The Luxembourg-based group’s move portends a shakeout in the once vibrant market for funky debt that has equity-like characteristics. Hybrid debt boomed during the low-rate era, with issuance topping 35 billion euros last year, according to ING. Yet calling bonds now means issuing new securities at a high cost, especially for weaker companies. Some, like Telefonica (TEF.MC), are still issuing, even at a higher cost. If investors demand higher returns to compensate for the risk of extension, the result will be a smaller, more discerning market.

☆ Big Pharma will muscle in on obesity gold rush
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-28 | by ( Aimee Donnellan | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +4 min

LONDON, Nov 28 (Reuters Breakingviews) - Obesity drugs are a modern day gold rush for drugmakers. By then, the obesity market could total $50 billion, according to Morgan Stanley. But a plausible 50% price cut would lower annual sales to $25 billion. Reuters GraphicsFollow @aimeedonnellan on TwitterCONTEXT NEWSSales of Novo Nordisk’s obesity drugs Wegovy and Saxenda reached nearly $1.2 billion in 2021, up 50% versus the previous year. Morgan Stanley analysts expect the obesity market to grow to $50 billion in annual sales by 2030.

☆ Brenntag’s U.S. swoop is both logical and risky
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-28 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

LONDON, Nov 28 (Reuters Breakingviews) - German chemical distributor Brenntag (BNRGn.DE) is eyeing $5 billion U.S. rival Univar Solutions (UNVR.N). A deal would offer the $10 billion group scale in a fragmented market, and greater exposure to North America. A deal would offer synergies and scale, and give Brenntag more exposure to North America. That market may be more resilient to Europe’s energy crunch, and it made up nearly 70% of Univar sales in 2021. And given the healthier U.S. market, there’s a risk Brenntag gets stuck in a bidding war – or ends up overpaying.

☆ Gucci designer’s exit boosts Kering’s M&A urgency
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-24 | by ( Lisa Jucca | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +3 min

MILAN, Nov 24 (Reuters Breakingviews) - The abrupt departure of star Gucci designer Alessandro Michele on Wednesday is putting French luxury boss François-Henri Pinault on the spot. The Italian brand, Kering’s (PRTP.PA) largest, has been a money-spinner for the 68 billion euro French conglomerate. Gucci revenue nearly trebled to 9.6 billion euros between 2014 and 2019. Reuters GraphicsFollow @LJucca on TwitterCONTEXT NEWSKering’s top brand Gucci said on Nov. 23 Creative Director Alessandro Michele had stepped down. Under Michele’s creative leadership, Gucci sales grew nearly three times from 2014 to 9.6 billion euros in 2019, one of the best performing brands in the luxury world.

☆ Dr. Martens exposes fashion’s squeezed middle
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-24 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

LONDON, Nov 24 (Reuters Breakingviews) - Dr. Martens (DOCS.L) revealed a weak spot in Britain’s already ailing retail sector. It also warned that it will have to spend more to hit its existing revenue target of “high teens” percent growth for the full year. That means its EBITDA margin will be 1 percentage point to 2.5 percentage points lower than last year’s 29%. Dr. Martens straddles the high street and luxury retail sectors. Chief Executive Kenny Wilson revealed growth in its direct-to-consumer offering was also slower than expected in the first half.

☆ A divided Fed hides behind fuzzy language
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-24 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

LONDON, Nov 24 (Reuters Breakingviews) - The Federal Reserve does not quite know when to stop hiking interest rates. A key question for investors wagering trillions of dollars on bonds and currencies is what the U.S. “terminal” rate is – the resting place for this cycle of monetary tightening. Those hoping for a clue from the central bank, however, have found themselves debating the meaning of “various”. The word appeared in the minutes for the November meeting of the Fed, which were released on Wednesday. The Federal Reserve itself seems equally uncertain.

☆ Manchester United buyer will need love and money
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-23 | by ( Neil Unmack | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +4 min

LONDON, Nov 23 (Reuters Breakingviews) - Anyone who wants to buy Manchester United (MANU.N) will need deep pockets and a big heart. The famous soccer club’s controlling shareholders, the Glazer family, said on Tuesday they’re considering selling after 17 years. The Glazers kicked off the trend of American sport investors buying British clubs when they took control of Manchester United in 2005. Soccer clubs’ revenue has boomed due to increasing demand from broadcasters and richer sponsorship deals. Manchester United benefited not just from being one of global football’s strongest brands, but also by roping in local sponsors like Japanese noodle makers.

☆ SocGen’s BNP envy carries a cost
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-22 | by ( Liam Proud | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +3 min

It mimics BNP Paribas’s (BNPP.PA) deal with European peer Exane, which the French group took over last year. SocGen research analysts cover around 500 mostly European stocks, according to JPMorgan, compared with AllianceBernstein’s more international coverage of roughly 800 companies. Second, the venture makes the French bank’s equities business less reliant on derivatives and structured products, which led to heavy losses in 2020. Trading cash equities and selling research typically chews up much less capital and leads to fewer blow-ups. And the wider equities trading business is increasingly dominated by larger players, especially U.S. banks.

☆ ABB takes valid detour around hairy IPO markets
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-21 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

The deal, which values ABB E-mobility’s equity at 2.5 billion Swiss francs, is a halfway house after original plans for an initial public offering were delayed by volatile markets. The deal values the unit at around 3 times 2023 sales, assuming far-from-impossible 50% revenue growth this year and next. The charging division gets long-term investors, a beefed-up board and greater independence, making an IPO easier when markets recover. ABB meanwhile continues to streamline its operations to focus on the core fast-growing areas of electrification and automation. They do not reflect the views of Reuters News, which, under the Trust Principles, is committed to integrity, independence, and freedom from bias.

Search resuls for: "Neil Unmack"

25 mentions found