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.
To many, Tatu City on the outskirts of Nairobi looks like a success. The first city entirely built by a private company to be operational in east Africa, with about 25,000 people living and working there, it accounts for about two-thirds of all foreign investment in Kenya. Its low-tax status has attracted more than 100 businesses including Heineken, coffee brand Dormans, and the biggest call-center and cold-chain transport firms in the region. However, to some local politicians, Tatu City has looked more like a target for extortion. A parade of governors have demanded land worth millions of dollars in exchange
An Indonesian animated movie is smashing regional box office records and could be set for wider success as it prepares to open beyond the Southeast Asian archipelago’s silver screens. Jumbo — a film based on the adventures of main character, Don, a large orphaned Indonesian boy facing bullying at school — last month became the highest-grossing Southeast Asian animated film, raking in more than US$8 million. Released at the end of March to coincide with the Eid holidays after the Islamic fasting month of Ramadan, the movie has hit 8 million ticket sales, the third-highest in Indonesian cinema history, Film
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co’s (TSMC, 台積電) revenue jumped 48 percent last month, underscoring how electronics firms scrambled to acquire essential components before global tariffs took effect. The main chipmaker for Apple Inc and Nvidia Corp reported monthly sales of NT$349.6 billion (US$11.6 billion). That compares with the average analysts’ estimate for a 38 percent rise in second-quarter revenue. US President Donald Trump’s trade war is prompting economists to retool GDP forecasts worldwide, casting doubt over the outlook for everything from iPhone demand to computing and datacenter construction. However, TSMC — a barometer for global tech spending given its central role in the
Alchip Technologies Ltd (世芯), an application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC) designer specializing in server chips, expects revenue to decline this year due to sagging demand for 5-nanometer artificial intelligence (AI) chips from a North America-based major customer, a company executive said yesterday. That would be the first contraction in revenue for Alchip as it has been enjoying strong revenue growth over the past few years, benefiting from cloud-service providers’ moves to reduce dependence on Nvidia Corp’s expensive AI chips by building their own AI accelerator by outsourcing chip design. The 5-nanometer chip was supposed to be a new growth engine as the lifecycle
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