GlaxoSmithKline has been awarded contract by the Department of Health to provide cervical cancer vaccine to girls across UK. GSK’s win is a blow to the rivals Sanofi Pasteur MSD, which is a joint venture between Merck of the US and Sanofi-Aventis of France for sales in Europe.
It was earlier predicted that Department of Health would choose Sanofi Pasteur MSD’s Gardasil vaccine for its 2m courses of HPV vaccine over three years. British scientific advisers were expected to recommend Gardasil on the basis of its protection against broader number of HPV sub-types. They were not prepared to approve Cervarix unless it was priced significantly lesser than Gardasil.
Eddie Gray, president of pharmaceuticals Europe for GSK, described it as great news for girls and women across UK and considered this to be the reflection of confidence in Cervarix’s cancer protection and sustained immune response. He informed that GSK won 16 tenders out of 20 across Europe in the last few months.
Patrick Poirot, vice-president for medical and scientific affairs at Sanofi Pasteur MSD, regretted that schoolgirls in the UK will be deprived of Gardasil’s unmatched cervical cancer protection and its additional benefits, unlike their peers in US, Australia, and Western Europe. He informed that Gardasil enjoys 90 per cent market share in Europe.
DoH in its explanation for approval of Cervarix mentions that it examined the rival vaccines against scientific qualities and cost effectiveness.
Apple’s exclusive UK mobile phone partner O2 is running out of stock for customers who want to place advance orders for 3G iPhone. It is supposed to go on general sale from Friday. 3G iPhone was available for online booking on O2 website from 8.00 a.m. onwards. But due to heavy traffic the website crashed within the first hour and O2 ran out of stock in the afternoon.
Carphone Warehouse, the only independent retailer in the UK informed that it has stocks available for new O2 customers for pre-order. Upgrading of O2 handset to a new 3G iPhone will commence only after Friday.
O2’s rivals are considering the short supply as a ploy to add hype to the Friday launch. It is a fact that company used similar tactics when it staged a high-profile music act at London’s O2 arena.
O2 refuted the rival’s speculations by saying that half the quantity of phones it ordered was availed by the pre-order customers. It did not reveal the total number of handsets it plans to stock. As per O2’s claims it has more than 200,000 registrations for 3G iPhone. It had 35,000 registrations for the existing version before it went on sale. According to Carphone Warehouse, interest in 3G iPhone is 10 times more than it was for the last version launched in November 2007.
Origin Energy rejected BG Group’s offer of A$13.8bn for the takeover after Australia’s major broking houses Credit Suisse and Merrill Lynch valued Origin at A$17.8bn and A$15.5bn respectively. There were widespread expectations that BG will raise its offer to secure Origin’s huge coal-bed methane reserves.
Merrill Lynch suspects that BG Group is softening the market for a higher bid. Frank Chapman, BG Group’s chief executive is not ruling out raising the bid. However he does not consider Origin critical for BG’s plans for Asia Pacific region, and hopes BG will become the first company to convert coal-bed methane into liquefied natural gas.
Chapman attacked Origin for commercialising its reserves and questioned its valuation of A$16bn. He expressed BG group’s willingness in retaining and investing in Origin’s gas resources, power generation, retail gas and electricity marketing.
The UK gas producer has taken 9.9 per cent stake with Queensland Gas Company in an A$8bn project in Australia. Grant King, Origin’s chief executive, supported board’s decision saying that bid price was too cheap with regard to the increasing importance of coal seam gas as an alternative energy source. He rejected BG Group’s criticism of Origin’s valuation and its reserves position. He declared that Origin would seek proposals from other energy groups around the world in commercialising its assets.
Marks and Spencer executives are certain to face a grilling from peeved investors at its yearly general meeting in London.
Some of the retailers’ major shareholders are up against the chief executive, Sir Stuart Rose. It is believed that up to 30 per cent may choose to abstain or vote against a proposal to reappoint him as a director. Investors will also demand to know more about the projected outlook for M&S after a sharp fall in sales.
Its shares fell almost 25 per cent after Sir Stuart mentioned last week that the firm faced up to a couple of years of difficult economic conditions, which will hit its profits.
M&S’s plan to appoint Sir Stuart as the executive chairman, in addition to his current role as chief executive, has proved unpopular with a disgruntled section of shareholders.
“Combining the two key roles in one person represents a dangerous concentration of power, potentially detrimental to board balance, board appraisal and effective debate,” corporate governance firm PIRC stated.
Tate and Lyle, manufacturer of sugar and industrial ingredients, is seeing the end of its transition period. After restructuring its business to improve performance, its pre-tax profits tumbled but the chief executive, Iain Ferguson says that company is now in the delivery mode. Its four-year capital investment programme is getting final touches.
Tate and Lyle exited Europe market with closure of starch plant, including Mexican sugar. After European Union cut down its sugar-production quota, it also restructured international sugar trading. Tate and Lyle had suffered a loss of £9m in the international trading, the previous year. Company’s pre-tax profits were down to £244m from £275m.
Mr Ferguson was very much impressed with the results of its starch business in US. This business registered a record growth in sales and profits for the 4th consecutive year. Profits were £186m, up by 6%. Iain Ferguson informs that it’s Tennessee and Indiana plants have additional capacity for production of food starches, which would further increase its US market share. A new plant in Singapore will also boost company’s Splenda Sucralose no-calorie sweetener business
The company has planned launch of its Fair-trade sugar in February, 2009. This will contribute to substantial rise in the sales by end of the year.
Tesco, the largest UK retailer by global sales and domestic market share with profits exceeding £2 billion clinched a deal to buy Scottish billionaire Sir Tom Hunter’s 29.2 % stake in Dobbies Garden chain.
In 2008 Tesco took over Metro AG, the German retail giant and became world’s 4th largest retailer. Tesco plans to take over Dobbies. It will pay West Coast Capital, the investment vehicle of Sir Tom Hunter, £12 per share and acquire 94.7 per cent of Dobbies’ equity. This offer values Dobbies at £124.5m.
West Coast Capital failed to block Tesco and Dobbies bid to raise £150m through open offer or rights issue. Sir Tom would have had to pay £44m to retain his stake in the retailer. Decision on the rights issue was postponed until 26 June. But in the changed circumstances with Sir Tom’s decision to sell his stake rights issue is not likely to take place.
Tesco will de-list Dobbies if Sir Tom offers his stake without conditions. Dobbies total sales were £83.5m, 21% up for the year ending 31 October. But its pre-tax profits fell by 11.7% amounting to £3.8m.
A Tesco spokesman described the offer as the most beneficial to Dobbies customers and staff. Introduction of services and green technology will contribute to environment and community will be the gainer at large.
Balfour Beatty, the UK’s biggest construction firm is outperforming in the business despite the global economic slump. It has assured its investors of strong trading this year. With £400 million of new orders in the last five months, Balfour’s total order book stands at £11.8 billion.
The firm operating in more than 20 nations struck a 330 million dollar (£150m) deal for construction of new highway in San Antonia, Texas. It is also involved, as the member of a consortium, in the construction of 445 million M74 extension in Glasgow.
Balfour’s success story unfolds further with its selection as the preferred bidder for M25 widening and maintenance project. Announcement of contract for the project, which involves addition of extra lane to 63 miles of orbital carriageway, will be made later this year.
Balfour is anticipating strong trading and order intake throughout the year in 2008, while the wider construction industry is struggling hard to contain rising costs and getting project fiancé.
Two latest surveys have projected very grim picture of the construction industry. The Chartered Institute of Purchasing and Supply (CIPS) mentions that construction activity slowdown rate was the fastest in 11 years last month.
Royal Institution for Chartered Surveyors (RICS) report that construction workloads were falling at their fastest rate since 1995.
Shares of Marks and Spencer took a deep plunge as the company issued warning about worsening sales and waning consumer confidence in the first three months of its current financial year. The shares plummeted by 22 percent resulting in the loss of £1 billion in the value of M&S shares.
The trading update made a week in advance, puts the drop in sales of M&S stores open for more than a year to 5.3 per cent in 13 weeks as on June 28. According to chief executive Sir Stuart Rose, M&S posted profits of £1 billion last year but the preliminary results in May indicated a mixed start to the current financial year. He expressed concern over the deteriorating consumer confidence and the challenges posed by the market conditions.
The group is predicting a deeper consumer downturn which is likely to last longer than it had initially expected. M&S’s like-for-like general merchandise sales went down by fell 6.2 per cent in 13 weeks but it could hold back market share in clothing and registered good performance in home-wares. Group’s food businesses is losing market share as sales were down 4.5 per cent.
The firm is trying to lure the price conscious customers with initiatives like “Dine in for £10″ campaign.
Under the worsening conditions, director of Marks and Spencer’s food business, Steven Esom has decided to quit with immediate effect. John Dixon, currently head of group’s Home and M&S Direct businesses will take over the charge.
Bananas, the biggest selling item in UK supermarkets, will cost 10p higher - courtesy Tesco, the world’s third biggest retailer. Tesco left its rivals far ‘behind’ in the price war by effecting an unprecedented step, possibly first time in the last decade or so. Tesco’s price of 77p a kilo for loose bananas is 10p more than its rivals Sainsbury’s, Asda and Morrisons. The retailer has passed on its soaring supply chain costs to the customers.
Anticipating customer backlash, Tesco reiterated its commitment to customers for offering great value and numerous offers of price cuts on vegetables and fruits every week. In a statement it explained that rising costs of supply chain compel it to raise prices of some items occasionally.
Taking advantage of Tesco’s price hike, Asda tried to lure customers by pricing bananas at 50p per kilo for a couple of days last week. Bryan Roberts, global research director at Planet Retail, informs that banana is the biggest selling product of UK and all the supermarkets sell more bananas than anything else.
Lord Harris, chairman and chief executive of Carpetright, is facing the toughest time in his illustrious career of 50 years as the pre-tax profits of the company went down by 11 per cent from £67m to £59.5m by end of the year.
According to Lord Harris, the UK floor coverings market, in line with housing and DIY-related sector, has been passing through difficult times, and the next year will most likely be the toughest year he had ever seen. He added that buying cost of carpets had gone up by 10 per cent since Christmas. He attributed downturn to the low volume of carpet manufacturing in the UK, increase in oil prices and weakening of Pound against Euro.
Lord Harris is forecasting a slowdown in Carpetright’s sales for another year and is expecting improvement in trading not before twelve months. For rest of the country, he predicts the slowdown will last for two to three years.
For the year ending May 3, Carpetright group sales grew by 9.6 per cent. In the UK and Ireland the increase was 8.3 per cent mainly due to its acquisition of Storey Carpets in 2007. Carpetright has acquired Ben de Graff, a floor covering and curtain retailer in southern Neitherlands. According to Lord Harris, Carpetright enjoys a strong position in a weak market and is likely to consider more acquisitions in Europe in the coming years.