Hints and tips:
...Rivals AstraZeneca, Johnson & Johnson, Russia’s Sputnik V and new entrants such as Novavax make up the remainder of the market, which is forecast to double in value to $124bn next year....
...Moody’s, the rating agency, said J&J’s break-up plan could have a negative impact on its credit rating due to the reduction in scale, diversity and earnings that would stem from the transaction....
...A year later GSK and Pfizer formed a joint venture from their consumer products divisions, which they plan to spin off next year....
...The AU will pay $6.75 a dose for the BioNTech/Pfizer vaccine and $10 for Johnson & Johnson’s, a single-dose product....
...After such strong reads from the first two releases (three if we count Russia’s Sputnik V), the disappointing AZN figures were perhaps bound to prompt downward pressure on the company’s shares....
...In August, Russia became the first country to approve a Covid-19 vaccine — named Sputnik V — for civilian use, but western experts cast doubt on its efficacy and safety....
...Ashish Gupta, head of Indian equity research at Credit Suisse, said India’s rising caseload ruled out a V-shaped rebound....
...Moody’s has also warned that it expects growing infection rates around the world to keep a lid on people’s appetite for travel well into next year....
...Mark Zandi, chief economist of Moody’s Analytics, said home upgrades were another sign of a “bifurcated economy”....
...That transaction, which was worth $160bn, would have allowed Pfizer to redomicile to Ireland by merging into Allergan and allow the US drugmaker to escape US taxes....
...“It’s not like the standard V-shaped recession in emerging markets, such as in Indonesia in 1998 where it’s only a year and a half of real economic hardship,” he said....
...Pfizer, Biogen, Novartis, Amgen and Mylan have already launched other biosimilar drugs and are expected to bring additional products to market in the next two years, Moody’s noted....
...Underscoring the division in the market is the wide range of ratings the major agencies offered on the bonds, which are as low as Caa1 from Moody’s and as high as double-B minus from Fitch....
...François Arrighi arrived to open and manage the property, fresh from the George V in Paris (and, before that, Les Airelles, one of Courchevel’s celebrated palaces)....
...The meat business is cyclical, said John Rogers, analyst at Moody’s. “The nutrition business is much more stable and much less cyclical,” he said....
...The group is rated in the single A range by S&P, Moody’s and Fitch....
...Charlie O’Shea, analyst at Moody’s, said the deal was a “transformative transaction, not just for food retail, but for retail in general”....
...IBM has about $65bn in profits overseas, according to Capital Economics, while Pfizer has about $80bn....
...The top-five list included the addition of Oracle, which ousted Pfizer after the pharmaceuticals group completed its $17bn takeover of Hospira....
...Richard Lane, analyst at Moody’s, estimates that US companies have $1.1tn in offshore cash, with the largest balances belonging to Apple, Microsoft, Google, Cisco and Oracle — none of which has done inversions...
...Moody’s calculated that $1.1tn is held offshore by US companies, and Mr Icahn said the number could be twice that. Allowing it to be repatriated and taxed would bring in $200bn, he said....
...Ian Read, chief executive of New York-based Pfizer, said last week the US tax code left his team “with one hand tied behind our back” in competition with foreign rivals....
...Apple, Microsoft, Google, Pfizer and Cisco are sitting on $439bn of cash — accounting for more than a quarter of the total $1.73tn being held by US groups, according to Moody’s Investor Services....
...Eli Lilly is one of five companies, together with Novo Nordisk, Amgen, Pfizer and Merck & Co to have seen an increase in patent exposure since Moody’s previous study in 2013....
...All the companies except Pfizer reported falls in their tax rates which ranged from 10 per cent to 66 per cent....
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