July, 2017

• 3 July

  Aspen CEO sees more dealmaking in emerging markets

  

  Bloomberg Aspen Pharmacare Holdings Ltd. sees further acquisitions in the next 12 months as strong revenue and lower capital expenditure restore its firepower after the purchase of two anesthetics portfolios last year. The potential deals will probably be made in the South African company’s existing pharmaceutical markets, with womens’ health a possible area of expansion, Chief Executive Officer Stephen Saad, ...

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• 3 July

  Drugmakers’ payments to UK health groups, doctors rise 25%

  

  Bloomberg Drugmakers in the UK led by AstraZeneca Plc increased payments to local health-care organizations, doctors and other workers by 25 percent last year, with most of that money going toward research and development, voluntary disclosures by the recipients showed. The spending climbed to 455 million pounds ($590 million) last year, according to a report on Friday from the Association ...

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• 3 July

  Euro-area manufacturing accelerates as orders fuel optimism

  

  Bloomberg Euro-area manufacturing expanded at the strongest pace in over six years as factories across the region took on more workers to deal with surging orders. A Purchasing Managers’ Index climbed to 57.4 in June, up from 57.0 in May and above a June 23 flash estimate, IHS Markit said on Monday. Growth rates improved in most of the surveyed ...

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• 3 July

  Is war between China, America inevitable?

  

  Let’s imagine a Chinese ‘applied history’ project, similar to the one at Harvard’s Belfer Center that helped spawn Professor Graham Allison’s widely discussed book ‘Destined for War.’ Allison’s historical analysis led him to posit a ‘Thucydides Trap’ and the danger (if not inevitability) of war between a rising China and a dominant America, like the ancient conflict between Athens and ...

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• 3 July

  Bond investors have forgotten about their silver linings

  

  It could be a bond market correction, or the start of a rout, or the seeds of a full-blown tantrum. But it’s none of these. In Europe, it’s just overdone. The fixed-income selloff has missed the fact that nothing fundamental has happened on the economic data front, or even politically — we’ve just been talked at by central bankers getting ...

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• 3 July

  ‘Clean coal’ will always be a fantasy

  

  Clean coal, always dubious as a concept and never proved as a reality, has now failed as business proposition. Southern Co. has decided to stop work on a process that would have captured carbon dioxide emissions from a coal plant in Mississippi. Giving up on the project, which was nearly $5 billion over budget and three years behind schedule, makes ...

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• 3 July

  How to clear the first Brexit hurdle

  The first task for the Brexit negotiators is to agree on the rights of European Union citizens in Britain, and of UK citizens in the EU. In a rational world, this would be straightforward. In the real world, it will be a problem if one side or the other chooses to make it one. Roughly 3.2 million EU citizens live ...

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• 3 July

  Chinese companies can stand more sunlight

  

  For all their national pride and natural boosterism, Chinese officials don’t seem to think much of their own companies. Regulators have sought to limit everything from high-speed trading to short-selling, arguing Chinese firms can’t yet handle the vagaries of modern financial markets. They’re particularly leery of greater transparency, for fear of what might be exposed. Only last week, the China ...

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• 3 July

  Silicon Valley must prove growth isn’t a mirage

  

  I’m going to wade into the debate over how to value companies that are technology-ish. There are understandable questions about whether mattress startup Casper, home-delivered razor seller Dollar Shave Club or meal-kit company Blue Apron should be valued like their old-guard competitors (meaning cheap) or more like internet companies that are in the business of bytes rather than real-world merchandise. ...

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• 3 July

  Disruptors need sound business models too

  

  Blue Apron is a company that claims to have “reimagined the traditional grocery business model.” Its recent disappointing initial public offering makes you wonder if investors are losing faith in such ‘reimaginings.’ Perhaps not, but it’s time to ask ourselves whether even some of Silicon Valley’s most vaunted attempts to rethink traditional business processes are sound, and what kind of ...

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