PHARMACEUTICALS
Perrigo to buy Elan to cut tax
US drugmaker Perrigo Co yesterday agreed to buy Ireland’s Elan Corp for US$8.6 billion in a deal designed to expand overseas and reduce its tax bill. Michigan-based Perrigo says it will pay Elan investors US$6.25 per share in cash and US$10.25 in Perrigo stock. The deal represents an 11 percent premium over Elan’s closing price on Friday. Earlier this month, Elan said it was open to offers after spending months fighting a hostile, lower-priced takeover bid by Royal Pharma Inc. Perrigo said it will become an Ireland-based company and said it could cut its tax liabilities nearly in half, saving more than US$150 million annually. About 700 US companies based in Ireland pay a 12.5 percent rate of tax on profits, versus the US rate of 35 percent.
PHARMACEUTICALS
Essilor to buy US, Italy firms
Essilor International SA, the world’s biggest maker of corrective eye lenses, yesterday said it has signed a deal to buy US group Transitions Optical and Italian manufacturer Intercast Europa for US$1.73 billion. Transitions Optical posted sales of US$814 million last year and is a specialist in photochromic lenses, which darken automatically when exposed to certain types of light. Essilor, a French group, said its purchase of 51 percent of the US company would allow it to “boost expansion in the photochromic segment, which is growing twice as fast as the optical industry, notably in Asia, Latin America and Europe.” It added that Intercast, which recorded revenues of US$34 million last year, would add to its “positioning in the sun lens segment, which enjoys significant growth potential.”
BANKING
ECB staff urge transparency
Two top European Central Bank (ECB) officials are arguing that the bank should join peers such as the US Federal Reserve and the Bank of England in publishing minutes of its policy-setting meetings. ECB Executive Board member Benoit Coeure said in an interview published yesterday by German daily Sueddeutsche Zeitung and France’s Le Figaro that he favors publishing minutes because people want transparency and accountability. Board colleague Joerg Asmussen was quoted in the same interview as saying the minutes should set out who voted for what and why. Asked whether there is a majority for the move on the ECB Governing Council, he replied: “Every majority starts as a minority.” While the bank has never published minutes, ECB President Mario Draghi holds a press conference after the bank’s monthly monetary policy meetings.
AIRLINES
Ryanair lands profit target
Cutbacks by rivals and extra charges for choosing seats helped low-cost airline Ryanair Ltd meet forecasts with a profit of 78 million euros (US$103 million) in the three months to last month, the Irish airline said yesterday. Ryanair benefited in the first quarter from an increase in so-called “ancillary” charges, particularly the roll out of advance booking for specific seats across the network, allowing passengers to bypass an unruly rush at departure gates. The company’s net profit compared with a forecast of 78 million euros in a poll of more than 20 analysts conducted by the company and was 21 percent lower than a year ago. The Dublin-based airline, famous for its no-frills service, maintained its forecast for earnings of 570 million to 600 million euros in its full year to the end of March, versus last year’s record 569 million euros.
WASHINGTON’S INCENTIVES: The CHIPS Act set aside US$39 billion in direct grants to persuade the world’s top semiconductor companies to make chips on US soil The US plans to award more than US$6 billion to Samsung Electronics Co, helping the chipmaker expand beyond a project in Texas it has already announced, people familiar with the matter said. The money from the 2022 CHIPS and Science Act would be one of several major awards that the US Department of Commerce is expected to announce in the coming weeks, including a grant of more than US$5 billion to Samsung’s rival, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), people familiar with the plans said. The people spoke on condition of anonymity in advance of the official announcements. The federal funding for
HIGH DEMAND: The firm has strong capabilities of providing key components including liquid cooling technology needed for AI servers, chairman Young Liu said Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密) yesterday revised its revenue outlook for this year to “significant” growth from a “neutral” view forecast five months ago, due to strong demand for artificial intelligence (AI) servers from cloud service providers. Hon Hai, a major assembler of iPhones that is also known as Foxconn, expects AI server revenues to soar more than 40 percent annually this year, chairman Young Liu (劉揚偉) told investors. The robust growth would uplift revenue contribution from AI servers to 40 percent of the company’s overall server revenue this year, from 30 percent last year, Liu said. In the three-year period
LONG HAUL: Largan Energy Materials’ TNO-based lithium-ion batteries are expected to charge in five minutes and last about 20 years, far surpassing conventional technology Largan Precision Co (大立光) has formed a joint venture with the Industrial Technology Research Institute (ITRI, 工研院) to produce fast-charging, long-life lithium-ion batteries for electric vehicles, mobile electronics and electric storage units, the camera lens supplier for Apple Inc’s iPhones said yesterday. Largan Energy Materials Co (萬溢能源材料), established in January, is developing high-energy, fast-charging, long-life lithium-ion batteries using titanium niobium oxide (TNO) anodes, it said. TNO-based batteries can be fully charged in five minutes and have a lifespan of 20 years, a major advantage over the two to four hours of charging time needed for conventional graphite-anode-based batteries, Largan said in a
Taiwan is one of the first countries to benefit from the artificial intelligence (AI) boom, but because that is largely down to a single company it also represents a risk, former Google Taiwan managing director Chien Lee-feng (簡立峰) said at an AI forum in Taipei yesterday. Speaking at the forum on how generative AI can generate possibilities for all walks of life, Chien said Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) — currently among the world’s 10 most-valuable companies due to continued optimism about AI — ensures Taiwan is one of the economies to benefit most from AI. “This is because AI is