Valeant to return Sprout to ex-owners
Valeant Pharmaceuticals International Inc. agreed to sell Sprout Pharmaceuticals Inc. to a buyer affiliated with former shareholders, a deal that will return its sole product, a female libido pill, to its prior owners and end a lawsuit against the company.
Valeant will get a 6 percent royalty on sales of the medicine, called Addyi, starting 18 months after the sale agreement signing in exchange, it said in a statement Monday. The lawsuit, in which former Sprout investors argued Valeant had bungled the pill's marketing, will be dismissed.
Laval, Quebec-based Valeant said it will also provide Sprout with a $25 million loan to fund initial operating expenses. The drugmaker racked up some $30 billion of debt during an acquisition spree led by the former chief executive officer, then ran into trouble for raising the prices of drugs and using a questionable distribution network.
-- Bloomberg News
Qatar Airways turns east after U.S. snub
Qatar Airways, spurned by American Airlines Group and isolated in the Persian Gulf, snapped up 9.6 percent of Hong Kong-based Cathay Pacific Airways on Monday in a surprise move that extends a policy of investing in major global carriers and provides a first foothold in East Asia.
Qatar Airways will buy the stake for $662 million from Kingboard Chemical Holdings Ltd. and associates, according to a statement, becoming Cathay's third-largest investor after local conglomerate Swire Pacific with a 45 percent holding and Air China with almost 30 percent.
The Cathay swoop is in line with a strategy of blue-chip deals that have seen Qatar Air buy 20 percent of British Airways owner IAG SA and 10 percent of No. 1 South American carrier Latam Airlines Group. At the same time the move reasserts the company's global ambitions 4 1/2 months after American Airlines rejected an investment bid. It also comes amid a Saudi Arabia-led blockade of Qatar that has led some flights to be scrapped and forced others to divert.
Akbar Al Baker, Qatar Air's chief executive officer, said the tie-up advances his investment strategy by securing a stake in "one of the strongest airlines in the world."
-- Bloomberg News
Drivers face fuel shock with emissions tests
Car owners in Europe are paying about $460 a year more than they expected for fuel because of a record gap between what vehicles actually burn on the road compared with manufacturers' data, according to a study from the International Council on Clean Transportation.
Carbon dioxide emissions on the road are 42 percent higher on average than the official figures from carmakers, the organization, which helped uncover Volkswagen AG's cheating on diesel emissions, said in a summary of the report released Monday. The difference was just 9 percent in 2001, which means most claims of efficiency improvements only showed up in lab tests, according to the ICCT.
"The gap between sales-brochure figures and the real world has reached another all-time high," said Uwe Tietge, lead author of the study, which analyzed data from 1.1 million vehicles in eight European countries.
While emissions gaps exist in the United States, Japan and China, Europe has the biggest discrepancy between official data and road results because of loose regulations, limited enforcement and outdated tests. The European Commission, the executive arm of the European Union, is scheduled to announce a proposal to address vehicle pollution later this week.
-- Bloomberg News
Tiny bug posing threat to pecan industry
CARLSBAD, N.M. -- A tiny bug is posing a threat to one of New Mexico's biggest cash crops.
An investigation by the Carlsbad Current-Argus and Roswell Daily Record found an invasive bug known as the pecan weevil could derail New Mexico's $180 million pecan industry.
In late 2016, and January 2017, the weevil was found in pecan orchards in multiple counties in southeast New Mexico. It was confirmed in Eddy, Lea, Chaves and Curry counties.
Quarantines were enacted to prevent its spread in the following months, and the New Mexico Department of Agriculture is looking to make them permanent.
New Mexico pecan producers worry the quarantine -- which restricts pecan shipments to areas without an infestation -- could prevent them from trading to the west where the industry is most lucrative.
-- The Associated Press
Original Dogfish Head pub demolished
REHOBOTH BEACH, Del. -- Demolition of the original Dogfish Head Brewings & Eats pub started Monday, more than two decades after it opened.
The Delaware State News reported that work to level the downtown Rehoboth Beach landmark started Monday morning.
Dogfish Head was the smallest commercial brewery in the United States when the pub opened in 1995. Since then, Dogfish Head has grown into the 14th largest craft brewery in the nation, according to the Brewers Association trade group.
Dogfish Head opened a new brewpub next door to their old location in May. The old pub will be torn down to make way for a new courtyard tentatively planned to open next spring.
-- The Associated Press
Chief of New York Fed to retire next year
William Dudley, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York and an advocate for cultural change at large financial institutions, will retire from his position in mid-2018, the bank announced Monday.
Dudley, 64, will step down before the end of his 10-year term expires in January 2019 to pave the way for a successor, the bank said.
Dudley succeeded Timothy F. Geithner at the bank's helm amid a deep recession in 2009 after President Barack Obama appointed Geithner as Treasury secretary.
Dudley participated in a worldwide push to reform benchmark rates after a scandal involving the manipulation of the London Interbank Offered Rate, or LIBOR.
Dudley, the vice chairman and a permanent voting member of the Federal Open Market Committee, was known for his role in the Fed's bond-buying campaign known as quantitative easing. Before joining the New York Fed in early 2007 as executive vice president and head of the Markets Group, he spent two decades at Goldman Sachs, where he was the chief economist.
-- The New York Times
Business on 11/07/2017