The Star Online: Business
The Star Online: Business |
- Australia's Woolworths says shoppers to stay uncertain
- Toyota says to suspend some N.America production on Oct. 29
- Insight: Anatomy of a costly biotech deal for Olympus
| Australia's Woolworths says shoppers to stay uncertain Posted: 26 Oct 2011 05:25 PM PDT Published: Thursday October 27, 2011 MYT 8:25:00 AMSYDNEY Oct 27 (Reuters) Woolworths Ltd , Australia's largest supermarket chain, expects shoppers to remain uncertain beyond Christmas and into the New Year, new Chief Executive Grant O'Brien said on Thursday. O'Brien made the comments on a call with analysts and media. Woolworths earlier posted a 1.9 percent rise in firstquarter comparable store sales in Australian food and liquor, missing expectations, and said the retail sector continued to be hurt by lack of consumer confidence. On Wednesday, Wesfarmers , Australia's No.2 supermarkets owner, said it expects consumer spending to remain weak even if Australia's central bank cuts rates next week after a benign inflation reading. |
| Toyota says to suspend some N.America production on Oct. 29 Posted: 26 Oct 2011 05:22 PM PDT TOKYO Oct 27 (Reuters) Toyota Corp said on Thursday that it would cut production in North America after flooding in Thailand interrupted auto part supplies. To conserve parts, Toyota said it would suspend production on Oct. 29 in Indiana, Kentucky and an engine production facility in West Virginia, as well as two plants in Ontario, Canada. About 1,800 Japanese manufacturers operate in Thailand and several of them, including Toyota, Canon Inc , Pioneer and Sony Corp , have suffered flood damage to plants or supply snags. Toyota had scheduled Saturday production to catch up on output after it was forced to cut back due to supply chain disruptions in the wake of Japan's March earthquake and tsunami. The floods in Thailand have disrupted the supply of about 100 auto parts, and Toyota plans to review production for each model by the end of this week, the Nikkei business daily earlier said. Toyota's inventories of chips for meters and electronic parts for car navigation and audio systems have been running low, the newspaper said. Toyota's shares were up 1.5 percent at 2,566 yen in early morning trade, outperforming a 0.5 percent rise in the benchmark Nikkei average . Full content generated by Get Full RSS. |
| Insight: Anatomy of a costly biotech deal for Olympus Posted: 26 Oct 2011 05:17 PM PDT TOKYO (Reuters) - Soon after paying a record-setting fee to close a now-controversial takeover in the spring of 2010, Japanese camera and endoscope maker Olympus Corp was back out shopping for another deal. Once again, it turned to a New York-based advisory firm outside the dealmaking mainstream and once again the Japanese company ended up paying an out-sized amount to complete a tangled deal that has come under scrutiny, internal company documents show. Olympus agreed in December last year to buy the rights to a biotech remedy intended to help regenerate human bone from medical device maker Stryker Corp for $60 million. But the documents reviewed by Reuters show that the deal may end up costing the Japanese firm around 50 percent more, thanks to payments made to its adviser. Olympus made a $25 million loan to Viscogliosi Brothers, the firm that advised it on the transaction and expects it will need to write off most of that amount, according to the documents. The Japanese company also paid a higher-than-normal $5 million transaction fee to Viscogliosi Brothers and agreed to reimburse $4.4 million in expenses, the documents show. The fees for advisers are typically 2 percent to 3 percent for deals of this size. Richard Torrenzano, a spokesman for Viscogliosi Brothers, said the firm could not discuss the deal under terms imposed by Olympus. "Unfortunately, we are bound by a confidentiality agreement with Olympus and cannot comment on any aspect of the deal," he said. Olympus declined to comment, as did Stryker spokesman Aaron Kwittke. A string of troubled acquisitions by Olympus has cost the company more than $1.2 billion in charges and write-offs, led to the resignation of Chairman Tsuyoshi Kikukawa and forced the company to appoint a panel to investigate in the face of a plunging share price. The 2010 biotech deal is small by comparison to some of Olympus' other deals. But like those acquisitions it was challenged by former Olympus CEO Michael Woodford and could raise questions about the company's governance and management. Woodford, 51, has said he was fired in a boardroom coup at Olympus for questioning a $687 million payment to advisers in the $2.2 billion takeover of medical equipment maker Gyrus in 2008. The FBI is investigating the massive advisory fee and Woodford has called on authorities in Japan and Britain to launch investigations of their own. Sources have told Reuters that Japan's securities watchdog was looking into past Olympus takeover deals. Olympus documents provided to Reuters by Woodford show that the former CEO raised questions about the Stryker acquisition and the role of advisers in that deal as well. "I'm still unclear as to the role played by Viscogliosi Brothers in the transaction and the basis upon which the loan was originally made," Woodford said in a September 23 memo to Olympus Executive Vice President Hisashi Mori. The documents reviewed by Reuters also include contractual agreements between Olympus and Viscogliosi Brothers signed in April and November of 2010, an April 2010 letter of intent between Stryker and Viscogliosi Brothers, and an August 31, 2011 internal Olympus presentation related to the deal. COSTLY DIVERSIFICATION Olympus has described its acquisitions as a way to diversify from its major markets in optical equipment including cameras and the endoscopes that surgeons now rely on for less invasive surgeries. On December 7, 2010, Olympus announced in a news release that it had formed a new unit, Olympus Biotech. At the same time, it announced that the unit had acquired a line of bone growth therapies from Stryker that would be part of its stepped-up push into biotechnology. The Stryker assets that Olympus acquired, including a Lebanon, New Hampshire plant, weren't unencumbered. In August 2010, Kalamazoo, Michigan-based Stryker agreed to pay $1.35 million to settle claims by Massachusetts prosecutors that the company marketed its bone growth products for uses that had not been cleared by federal regulators. The products known as OP-1 are based on a naturally occurring protein used to stimulate bone growth. Stryker Biotech only had U.S. Food and Drug Administration approval for the product under the humanitarian device exemption, which limits the number of units that can be sold and typically prohibits the company from making a profit. The Olympus news release did not mention the advisory role that Viscogliosi Brothers had played in the deal or payments to the firm. Full content generated by Get Full RSS. |
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