Fortune (March 20)
“More than 30 companies are ‘digging in,’ defying public demands to exit Russia or reduce their activities in the pariah state.” The list compiled by Yale’s Jeffrey Sonnenfeld has been revised with five categories to better capture corporate presence in Russia: “withdrawal,” “suspension,” “scaling back,” “buying time,” and “digging in.” Included in the final category are “AstraZeneca, Credit Suisse, Emirates Airlines, Koch Industries, SC Johnson, and Subway, which has nearly 450 franchise locations in the country.”
Tags: 30 companies, AstraZeneca, Credit Suisse, Digging in, Emirates Airlines, Exit, Koch Industries, Pariah state, Public demands, Reduce, Russia, SC Johnson, Sonnenfeld, Subway, Yale
Reuters (December 2)
“The good news is that drugmakers are already increasing their manufacturing capacity, which should reduce vaccine hoarding.” Moderna, J&J, AstraZeneca and Pfizer “are expected to produce 12 billion doses between them next year, enough to give two jabs to 75% of the world’s population.” The bad news is “getting shots into arms is a bigger challenge. Many developing countries lack the trained staff to administer doses, or the kit and infrastructure to ship them in the right conditions.”
Tags: AstraZeneca, Capacity, Challenge, Developing countries, Drugmakers, Infrastructure, J&J, Moderna, Pfizer, Trained staff, Vaccine hoarding
Financial Times (May 12)
There’s little obvious business sense to Pfizer’s proposed takeover of AstraZeneca. Strategically, there’s not much to be gained aside from effecting a change of tax domicile. “Pfizer’s dealmaking history is moreover a deeply dispiriting one…. Despite having spent some $240bn on three big acquisitions since 2000, its market capitalisation is just $185bn today. Meanwhile the Dow Jones index is more than 40 per cent higher.” AstraZeneca’s directors must proceed warily. This is about more than the potential short-term profit to existing shareholders.
Tags: Acquisitions, AstraZeneca, Dealmaking, Directors, Dow Jones, Market-cap, Pfizer, Profit, Shareholders, Short term, Strategy, Takeover, Tax domicile
