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Sunday, January 16, 2022

United Kingdom-based pharmaceutical giant GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) confirmed January 15 it had rejected three “unsolicited, conditional and non-binding proposals” by Unilever to acquire its Consumer Healthcare division, including one bid of GBP50 billion in value made on December 20, believing Unilever “fundamentally undervalued” the business and its potential.

News that Unilever attempted to buy GSK Consumer Healthcare for 50 billion pounds, split between GBP41.7 billion in cash and 8.3 billion in Unilever shares, was first reported by The Sunday Times, and subsequently confirmed by both companies. Had the latest acquisition offer gone through, it would have been the largest deal since the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic, and one of the biggest ever among companies listed on the London Stock Exchange.

A deal would likely mean integrating the GSK division into Unilever’s own beauty and personal care business, which has seen profit margins struggle under Covid-19 lockdowns and higher costs for plastics and petrochemicals.

A brief response on the Unilever website confirmed it “had approached GSK and Pfizer about a potential acquisition”, and adds GSK Consumer Healthcare “would be a strong strategic fit” as the company looks to rework its portfolio. GSK indicated the proposals were “carefully evaluated” by its board of directors, but unanimously rejected under the conclusion they “were not in the best interests of GSK shareholders” and “failed to reflect the intrinsic value of the business and its potential”.

The Sunday Times have indicated the latest deal did not include an acquisition premium or recognition of corporate synergies; the joint venture between GSK and healthcare firm Pfizer, which holds a minority stake in the company, was initially projected to generate GBP500 million in cost savings by this year and realise “substantial cost synergies”. The BBC’s business editor Simon Jack wrote that a standard takeover premium would be about 30%, but could be reduced over the GBP10 billion in debt GSK was predicted to “leave on the books”, of the GBP22 billion net debt GSK reported for Q3 2021.

The deals were assessed by the Board respective of a proposed demerger of GSK Consumer Health into a separate PLC in the middle of this year. Jack wrote GSK “always” had “an open mind to a trade sale to another party if the price was right.” Unilever did not take into account the standard takeover premium, the value of cost savings and Board confidence Consumer Health could deliver “superior organic sales growth” of between four and six per cent in the medium term. This was despite valuations of about GBP50 billion by Goldman Sachs and Barclays analysts, and a lower GBP45 billion valuation by Jeffries Group.

There are no current talks between Unilever and either Pfizer or GSK, and the Unilever statement reads: “There can be no certainty that any agreement will be reached.” Under CEO Alan Jope, Unilever has focused its investments and marketing on brands which “communicate a strong environmental or social purpose” by streamlining its holdings in items like beauty products and tea. Jope previously said Unilever would concentrate on smaller takeovers in industries like luxury beauty and wellness.

However, Russ Mould, investment director at AJ Bell, told the BBC this would be a “high risk deal” at a time investors are cautious about GSK’s performance, but also a time of rising inflation he says encourages “consumer goods with loyal customers”. Mould added despite strong cashflow, Unilever had recently missed targets on sales and profit margins, putting pressure on the CEO.

Pressure by activist shareholders Elliott Management Corporation and Bluebell Capital Partners have also mounted against GSK CEO Emma Walmsley over the unit’s failure to develop a Covid-19 vaccine and Walmsley’s own lack of scientific experience. GSK has been involved in the ongoing development of a Covid-19 vaccine with French biopharmaceutical company Sanofi, and announced preliminary results from Phase 3 trials last month.

In 2018, Unilever bought several consumer nutritional products from GSK, including its flagship product Horlicks, and merged its Indian subsidiary, Hindustan Unilever, with GSK Consumer Healthcare India.

Monday, March 14, 2011

An explosion was reported at 0610 local time Tuesday morning at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant’s second reactor. The blast is feared to have breached the pressure chamber.

The explosion is thought to have been in the reactor’s “pressure suppression room” — part of the cooling system. It damaged the area that contains water to cool the reactor, but it is not yet clear whether it affected the containment structure near the core.

Government officials have said that there was limited damage as a result of the explosion, and efforts to cool the reactor would go on, but nuclear industry executives in Japan have said that the situation is far worse, and other unnamed officials said the containment structure had been damaged, but did not say to what extent. In the wake of the explosion, officials at the Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO), the plant’s operator, said for the first time a partial meltdown could be taking place within the reactor.

After the explosion, radiation levels near the facility rose from 1,941 to 8,712 microsieverts, a level still short of that required to cause immediate health effects, and radiation decreased again some time after the explosion. The legal limit for radiation in one year is a thousand microseiverts, but radiation sickness does not occur until a million microseiverts.

Prior to the explosion the fuel rods in the reactor reported to again be exposed after the pressure valve closed at 11pm local time, preventing pumping in cooling water.

“The reactor containment vessel, which is the last line of defence to contain the radiation, this may have experienced some damage…it seems that there are damages at several different places of these walls around radioactive substances.” [excerpted from live translation transcription by CNN of NHK coverage of press conference, stream]

According to TEPCO, all but 50 employees of the plant were evacuated after the incident.

Workers at the 40-year old plant have been struggling to deal with the aftermath of Friday’s massive earthquake and tsunami. On Saturday, a hydrogen explosion occurred at the number one reactor, followed by a second explosion on Sunday to the number three reactor. The number two reactor was reported to be overheating, with exposed fuel rods, earlier today. Nearly 185,000 people have been evacuated from the 20 km zone around the plant.

Wednesday, October 11, 2006

A small aircraft struck an apartment building in New York this afternoon, killing the pilot and a flight instructor. Cory Lidle, a pitcher for the New York Yankees baseball team, was the registered owner of the aircraft and is believed to have been piloting it; his passport was found on the scene. The flight instructor was Tyler Stanger.

The plane, a Cirrus SR20 with registration number N929CD, hit the 26th floor of the Belaire Condominium, a 50 story brick luxury residential building on the Upper East Side at 524 East 72nd Street at York Avenue near the East River in Manhattan, New York City, of which the first 20 floors are a hospital. An eyewitness, present half a block from the building, reported that the plane hit the building, creating an enormous fireball, broke in two and crashed down onto on the street below. Authorities received a 911 call reporting a crash at 2:42 p.m. Eastern time.

New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg gave a press conference at approximately 5:20 p.m. Eastern time to report that the plane was occupied by a flight instructor and a student pilot, but as next-of-kin had not been able to be notified, the identities of the two people on the plane would not be released at this time.

Apartments were seen to be engulfed in flames. The FBI has stated that it was not an intentional attack. The New York area was grey and overcast during the time at crash; however, visibility was not hampered.

After an hour and a half, the fire was extinguished by the FDNY. According to CNN Television ten people have been injured, six of them firefighters. The New York Times, however, reports that eleven firefighters have been injured.

Initial reports suggested that a helicopter was involved, but the FAA has stated that it was a fixed-wing aircraft. CNN Television reported that it was a single-engine fixed-wing plane which left Teterboro Airport, a busy General Aviation airport in New Jersey, circled the Statue of Liberty was tracked on radar until it was lost near the 59th Street Bridge, that the plane may have been having fuel problems or fuel pump problems, and that it was “a pilot in distress.”

Wallace Sines, a source for CNN stated he believes the plane was a Cirrus SR-20 with an installed parachute, which did not deploy. The whole-plane parachute system may have saved the lives of the aircraft occupants had it been safely deployed clear of buildings, but the system is not designed to prevent the trauma associated with a plane impacting a builing. The Cirrus SR-20 was introduced in 2001 and the Cirrus line of 4-seater aircraft has since become one of the most purchased single engine aircraft in the world. The SR-20 does not normally carry an airline-style flight-data recorder, but some are equipped with GPS equipment which logs flight direction, speed and altitude.

The aircraft was owned by baseball player Cory Lidle. He was on board reported by AP. Lidle was killed, according to reports. CNN Television reported that the FBI stated he was at the controls as the only occupant of the plane, and that his passport was found on the ground below the accident.

A little over an hour and a half after the crash, the fire was extinguished after 39 fire units and over 100 fire fighters responded.

The White House has said that there has been no change in the terror threat alert level and that President Bush is being updated constantly.

La Guardia airport was temporarily restricted to no take offs from other airports, however by 4:10 Eastern Time, CNN Television reported that all New York-area airports were open.

CNN Television announced at 3:50 p.m. Eastern Time that as of a few minutes earlier, NORAD is putting fighter aircraft on patrol over certain major American cities as a precautionary measure similar to the actions taken after the 9/11 attacks as a “just in case” measure. It also reported that tomorrow is the 6th anniversary of the attack on the USS Cole in Aden, Yemen.

Moments after the crash, there was a drop in the New York Stock Exchange, however it quickly returned to normal after it was reported that the crash was an accident.

The New York Yankees organization confirmed the plane is registered to Cory Lidle of the New York Yankees, who was planning to fly from New York to Florida, and that some unnamed member of the Yankees organization was on the plane.

One eye-witness interviewed by the BBC stated: “I was wondering why the plane was doing acrobatics and then the next thing I knew was that it had crashed into the building.”She also added that the plane was a small, white, 4-seater winged aircraft and not a helicopter as many news agencies were reporting it to be.

CNN Television broadcast reports from eyewitnesses who reported:

• A pilot who saw the impact stated, “It looked like a pilot who was desperately trying to get to an airport.”
• Another eyewitness who saw the event from the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway, also referred to the incident as appearing as if the plane was “desperately trying to get to LaGuardia” and that as to whether he “clipped” the building, or struck it directly, that “he hit it dead on.”
• “I heard a buzzing noise and then an explosion which looked like a mushroom cloud.”

Thursday, October 3, 2013

A review this week by Wikinews of US Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) complaints about mortgages in the United States shows Bank of America leads all lending institutions in complaints.

Since mortgages complaints were recorded in December 2011, 77,622 total have been added to CFPB’s database. 29.2% of these complaints involved Bank of America, with the second most received by Wells Fargo, accounting for 15.5% of all complaints. JPMorgan Chase ranked third by volume of complaints with 9.8%. Ocwen was fourth with 8.7% and Citibank was fifth with 4.8%. Nationstar Mortgage; Green Tree Servicing, LLC; HSBC; PNC Bank; U.S. Bancorp; OneWest Bank; SunTrust Bank; Flagstar Bank; and Select Portfolio Servicing, Inc. each had between 1.0 and 3.8% of total complaints. The remaining 14.4% of all complaints about consumer mortgages were divided between about 530 other lending institutions.

The Motley Fool reported last month that for the past fiscal quarter, the biggest US based mortgage lenders were from first to fifth Wells Fargo, JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America, Quicken Loans and U.S. Bancorp.

According to the US Federal Reserve, debt for family residences stands at US$10.706 trillion for the second quarter of 2013. As of the end of June of this year, Bank of America is the United States’s second largest commercial bank with US$1.343 trillion in domestic assets. Wells Fargo is the fourth largest commercial bank with US$1.251 trillion in domestic assets. JPMorgan Chase is the largest US commercial bank with US$1.329 trillion in domestic assets and US$1.947 trillion in total assets.

The mortgage complaints in the CFPB report include several subproducts. Conventional fixed mortgages account for 27.1% of all complaints. Conventional adjustable mortgages account for 10.0%. FHA mortgages account for 7.7% of all complaints. Home equity loans or lines of credit account for 3.8% of all complaints. VA mortgages are 1.4% of all complaints. Second mortgages and reverse mortgages each account for 0.6% of complaints. The remaining 48.7% of complaints are about other mortgages or other mortgage issues. A few years ago, FHA loans accounted for about 10% of all US mortgages while VA loans accounted for about 3%. Prime loans accounted for over 75% of the market and the rest were subprime mortgages.

California leads all states by volume of complaints with 14768. It is followed by Florida, New York, Georgia and Texas. When complaints are divided by a state’s total population, New Hampshire leads. The state is followed by Washington D.C., Maryland, Georgia and Florida. Complaints do not correlate with national rankings for August’s foreclosure rate by state where Nevada topped the list, followed by Florida, Ohio, Maryland and Delaware.

Two zip codes account for over 1,000 total complaints between them. 565 complaints originated in the 48382 zip code, which is in Commerce Township, Michigan, located in suburban Detroit. 553 complaints originated in the 33071 zip code, in Coral Springs, Florida. According to real estate website Zillow, there are currently 1,033 properties in foreclosure in Coral Springs while Commerce Township only has 131 properties currently in foreclosure. Four other zip codes have 100 plus complaints originating from them. 91730, in Rancho Cucamonga, California, had 158 complaints. 33409, in West Palm Beach, Florida, had 132. 92626, in Costa Mesa, California, had 125 complaints. 92660, in Newport Beach, California, had 122 complaints. Respectively, the towns had 534, 1,068, 153, and 134 properties currently in foreclosure. These numbers are higher than for the cities of a few sampled zip codes where there was only one complaint, such as Gold Hill, Oregon which has 4 properties in foreclosure, and Decatur, Illinois which has 6 properties in foreclosure.

The CFPB categorizes complaints into six categories: “Loan modification, collection,foreclosure” or problems when a person is unable to pay; “Loan servicing, payments, escrow account” or problems with making a payment; “Application, originator, mortgage broker”; “Credit decision / Underwriting”; “Settlement process and costs”, and “Other”. The CFPB says the complaint types indicate consumers “appear to be driven by a desire to seek agreement with their companies on foreclosure alternatives. The complaints indicate that consumer confusion persists around the process and requirements for obtaining loan modifications and refinancing, especially regarding document submission timeframes, payment trial periods, allocation of payments, treatment of income in eligibility calculations, and credit bureau reporting during the evaluation period.” Currently, 59.6% of all complaints against lenders deal with being unable to pay. 25.1% deal with problems in making a payment. 7.0% have to do with the application process.

Of the complaint-heavy zip codes, for 48382 in Commerce Township, Michigan, 98.9% of all complaints have to deal with being unable to pay. Accounting for 23.4% of all mortgage complaints in Commerce Township, 132 of the complaints for being unable to pay were made regarding Bank of America, accounting for 97.8% or all but 3 complaints against them from the zip. 121 of the Bank of America responses in Commerce Township were closed with explanation and 12 were closed with non-monetary relief. 33071 in Coral Springs is different, with 537 of the 553 complaints being categorized under other. Only 11 complaints relate to foreclosure and issues with being able to pay. 92626 in Costa Mesa, where 32% of the mortgage complaints were about Bank of America and 26.4% were about Wells Fargo, had 93.6% of its complaints dealing with being unable to pay. 5 total complaints dealt with payment issues and 3 dealt with applications.

Beyond regional variance in complaint types lodged, the top five mortgage lenders by volume of complaints all had being unable to pay as their top complaint category, ranging between 55.8% for Citibank and 69.4% for Bank of America. Problems with payment accounted for the second largest area of complaints, with Ocwen having the largest percentage of complaints at 31.9% and Bank of America having the smallest at 18.8%. Foreclosure was the top area of complaints for a number of other lending institutions including 1st Alliance Lending, OneWest Bank, Ally Bank, Banco Popular de Puerto Rico, Bank of the West, BMO Harris, BOK Financial Corp, Caliber Home Loans, Inc, Capital One, Deutsche Bank and EverBank.

Nationally, complaints reached a high of 5,840 for January 2013, 1,107 more than the next highest month of April 2013. The total emerging for September is the second lowest since records were first kept in December 2011. On a state by state level, this pattern largely repeats with a major exception for Florida which saw a peak of 849 complaints in June 2012. Then, as now, Florida was one of the top five states in the nation in its foreclosure rate. The national January spike came as the Qualified Mortgage standard required by the The Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act of 2010 came into play. It required mortgage lenders to take steps to insure borrowers could repay their mortgages.

Bank of America’s complaint volume follows the national trend, with a spike in January 2013 with 1,925 total complaints. Unlike nationally, the next month by volume of complaints was February of this year with 1,598 complaints. Prior to that, the highest month was May 2012 with 1,418 complaints. The lowest volume of complaints is September this year with 334.

Wells Fargo matched national trends for volume of complaints by month, with the exception of the current month being the lowest on record for number of complaints with 197 compared to the next lowest month, December 2011, when they had 221. JPMorgan’s complaint volume by month spiked in January and March of this year with 504 complaints. April of this year was the next highest month with 493 complaints, edging out May of last year with 488 complaints. September this year is on track to be the lowest month by complaint volume.

The federal government shutdown is unlikely to impact the current mortgage situation in the United States directly for most consumers, though mortgage processing by the Federal Housing Administration could be slower, resulting in fewer mortgages processed.

Friday, June 1, 2007

A former mailman who proposed to paint the town hall pink, turn the local town square into a nudist pool, and to plant a marijuana field in the local park has been elected to the Reus, Spain town council.

Ariel Santamaria promised to show up to the town’s council meetings dressed up as Elvis Presley if he was elected and kept his word at the town’s first meeting on Thursday.

Before being elected, Santamaria who is a member of the Reus Independent Coordination, had also promised the town’s 100,000 residents that he would install a GPS system at the police department that would allow officers to track people who are smoking marijuana and provide them with a light if they need one.

An unnamed media consultant who works for Santamaria set up a website for his campaign and followed Santamaria wherever he went, dressed as a pirate.

Wednesday, September 21, 2005

The Tennessee state Department of Mental Health has ordered the closing of two Ex-gay ministries operated by Love In Action International Inc., a controversial Christian group that counsels gays to give up homosexuality.

The state deemed that Love in Action was “providing housing, meals and personal care for mentally ill patients without a license”. In particular, the state found that Love in Action was dispensing medication to patients without the required license.

Love in Action has repeatedly drawn fire from gay rights groups who view it as preying upon the fears of religious parents in order to make Christian ministers like Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson seem more acceptable to the uninformed public. Gay rights advocates view such bootcamp style Ex-Gay camps as “tantamount to child abuse”. [1] [2]

Love In Action is viewed as the first modern Ex-Gay group. Its co-founder John Evans, who abandoned the ministry, feels that it has led to “nothing but shattered lives, depression, and even suicide” and suggests that “The Church has been wrong in the past regarding moral issues and I’m sure there will be more before Christ returns.”

The American Psychological Association and the American Psychiatric Association strongly affirm that “homosexuality is not an illness”, “does not require treatment” and “is not changeable.” They feel that “gay men and lesbians who have accepted their sexual orientation positively are better adjusted than those who have not done so,” and warn that people seeking conversion therapy may be doing so under pressure from religious groups. The American public is evenly divided on the question of whether homosexual orientation can be changed, according to the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life [3].

Saturday, September 8, 2007

Ford Motor Company, the U.S. car maker, will reportedly pay €57 million (US$78 million) for a 72.4 percent stake in the Romanian assembly plant Automobile Craiova, a Romanian official said Friday.

“The offer of Ford Motor Company for a 72.4 percent stake is €4.1556 per share or €57 million overall,” said Sebastian Vladescu, head of the State Property Agency (AVAS), after opening Ford’s improved offer. Vladescu added that the contract may be signed on September 12, during the auto show in Frankfurt.

The Romanian government bought back the Craiova-based car maker from Daewoo Motors, in late 2006 for US$51 million. As the Korean company was bankrupt, the government had to pay another $10 million for debts stemming from past loans. Ford is the only bidder for the purchase of the factory.

According to Washington Post, many auto-part makers have set up in the new European Union member country, attracted by cheap labor, favourable tax rates and the rising output of Renault’s Dacia plant. The vice president of Dacia, Constantin Stroe, said that the price Ford offers is not important. “It’s important to have the factory working as soon as possible”, he added. “With this production facility, Romania will become an important auto production center in Europe”, concluded Stroe, cited by HotNews.