Spirax-Sarco offloads German unit, AstraZeneca divests two drugs to Grunenthal
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The FTSE 100 is expected to open 124 points higher on Monday, having closed down 0.83% at 6,980.24 on Friday.
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Spirax-Sarco Engineering said it had sold its German HygroMatik unit to Carel Industries for €59m (£52.m). The profit on disposal, after relevant fees, will be excluded from adjusted operating profit but included in reported statutory profit in the group's financial results for 2018, Spirax said.
One of the two US private equity giants in buyout talks with RPC Group has walked away, but negotiations continue with the other. RPC said it has ended discussions with Bain Capital but that the deadline for Apollo Global Management to make an offer has been pushed back to 21 December as talks continue.
AstraZeneca has completed an agreement to divest the prescription medicine rights to Nexium (esomeprazole) in Europe, as well as the global rights - excluding the US and Japan - to Vimovo (naproxen/esomeprazole), to Grunenthal, it announced on Monday. The FTSE 100 drugmaker said that under the terms of the agreement, it received payments of $700m for Nexium and $115m for Vimovo from Grünenthal. It said it would continue to commercialise Nexium in all markets outside Europe, where it retained the rights, but it would not retain any ownership rights to Vimovo globally.
Newspaper round-up
China has agreed to “reduce and remove” tariffs below the 40% level that Beijing is currently charging on US cars, Donald Trump has claimed, amid a trade war truce agreed by the two countries. The US president and Chinese leader Xi Jinping agreed to halt new tariffs during talks in Argentina on Saturday, following months of escalating tensions on trade and other issues. - Guardian
Theresa May was under fresh pressure last night as the DUP threatened to abandon her in a confidence vote if she failed to get her Brexit deal through parliament. Party sources said that they were considering the move, which would leave the prime minister without a Commons majority, over fears that her plan would create a border between Northern Ireland and the rest of the UK. - The Times
A fresh banking crisis in Italy could spark a devastating “doom loop” that threatens UK financial stability, the Bank of England has warned. Bank officials are concerned that problems affecting Italian lenders could spread across the Eurozone and eventually be transmitted to the UK economy through French and German banks, which have massive exposure to Italy. - Telegraph
US close
Trading on Wall Street finished with moderate gains on Friday as investors eyed the G20 summit, with Donald Trump Xi Jinping set to meet to discuss trade the following day.
By the end of trading, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was 0.79% or 199.62 points higher at 25,538.46, while the S&P 500 had picked up 0.82% or 22.41 points to 2,760.17 and the Nasdaq Composite was 0.79% or 57.45 points firmer at 7,330.54.
The yield on the benchmark 10-year US Treasury note was down by four basis points at 2.99%.
All eyes were on Trump and China's Xi Jinping at the G20 meeting in Argentina amid hopes that the pair will be able to reach a truce in their trade war.
“The consensus seems to feel that a breakthrough is unlikely but Trump prides himself on his self-proclaimed deal-making abilities and may well look to broker an agreement especially considering the recent decline in the stock market which undermines his claims that the rally since he took office is a result of his policies, said David Cheetham, chief market analyst at XTB.