Author: therawinformant

(Bloomberg) — U.S. health officials agreed pay $1.95 billion for 100 million doses of a vaccine made by Pfizer Inc. and BioNTech SE, the latest step in an effort to fight the coronavirus pandemic.The companies will receive payment upon the receipt of the doses, following regulatory authorization or approval, according to a statement. The government also can acquire up to an additional 500 million doses.Nations around the world have begun ordering vaccines that are still being tested as part of their efforts to try to blunt the impact of the pandemic that’s roiled economies and killed more than 600,000 people since the beginning of the year. The U.S. has already ordered experimental shots developed by the University of Oxford and AstraZeneca Plc.The vaccine would be available to the American people for free, according to the government. Pfizer shares rose more than 5% in pre-market trading. BioNTech climbed about 7%.(Updates with other orders in the third paragraph. An earlier version of the story corrected the number of doses.)For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.comSubscribe now to stay ahead with the most trusted business news source.©2020 Bloomberg L.P.

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WATERLOO, Ontario, July 22, 2020 /CNW/ — BlackBerry Limited (NYSE: BB; TSX: BB) today announced that it has obtained consents from the beneficial owners of 88.39% of its outstanding 3.75% unsecured convertible debentures (TSX: BB.DB.V) (the “3.75% Debentures”) including Fairfax Financial Holdings Limited and certain of its affiliates (together, “Fairfax”), to give effect to an extraordinary resolution (the “Extraordinary Resolution”) authorizing a supplemental indenture to permit the optional redemption of the 3.75% Debentures prior to November 13, 2020. The outstanding principal amount of the 3.75% debentures is US$605 million. BlackBerry intends to redeem the entire outstanding principal amount of the 3.75% Debentures on or about September 1, 2020 (the “Redemption Date”) at a redemption price of 101.6854% of the outstanding principal amount of the 3.75% Debentures.

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Pfizer Inc (PFE) and BioNTech SE (BNTX) have agreed to provide the US government with 100 million doses of their COVID-19 vaccine candidate BNT162, after Pfizer successfully manufactures and obtains approval or emergency use authorization from the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA).The U.S. government will pay the companies $1.95 billion upon the receipt of the first 100 million doses, following FDA authorization or approval. The U.S. government also can acquire up to an additional 500 million doses.Shares in Pfizer are up 5% in Wednesday’s pre-market trading while BioNTech is up 6%.“Expanding Operation Warp Speed’s diverse portfolio by adding a vaccine from Pfizer and BioNTech increases the odds that we will have a safe, effective vaccine as soon as the end of this year,” said Department of Health and Human Services’ Secretary Alex Azar.Americans will receive the vaccine for free following the US government’s commitment for free access for COVID-19 vaccines.The BNT162 program is based on BioNTech’s proprietary mRNA technology and supported by Pfizer’s global vaccine development and manufacturing capabilities. The BNT162 vaccine candidates are undergoing clinical studies and are not currently approved for distribution anywhere in the world.BioNTech is the market authorization holder worldwide and will hold all trademarks for the potential product.The Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine development program is evaluating at least four experimental vaccines, each of which represents a unique combination of messenger RNA (mRNA) format and target antigen. On July 1, Pfizer and BioNTech announced preliminary data from BNT162b1, the most advanced of the four mRNA formulations.The early data demonstrates that BNT162b1 is able to produce neutralizing antibodies in humans at or above the levels observed in the plasma from patients who have recovered from COVID-19, and this was shown at relatively low dose levels. No serious adverse events were reported. On July 20, the companies announced early positive update from German Phase 1/2 COVID-19 vaccine study, including first T Cell response data.If ongoing studies are successful, Pfizer and BioNTech expect to be ready to seek Emergency Use Authorization or some form of regulatory approval as early as October 2020. The companies currently expect to manufacture globally up to 100 million doses by the end of 2020 and potentially more than 1.3 billion doses by the end of 2021.Shares in Pfizer are down 6% year-to-date, while BioNTech has exploded over 170%. Looking forward, analysts take a cautiously optimistic Moderate Buy consensus on both stocks. However, due to the recent rally, BioNTech’s average analyst price target of $60 now indicates 30% downside potential from current levels.Mizuho Securities analyst Vamil Divan has a buy rating on Pfizer and $38 price target (4% upside potential). That’s slightly under the stock’s average analyst price target of $41 (13% upside potential).“We had several discussions with investors today on the back of the initial data, with much of the discussion focused on the commercial potential for a successful SARS-CoV-2 vaccine” the analyst wrote.“The company has mentioned that it will look to price a potential vaccine in line with other commercially-available vaccines, suggesting to us a potential blockbuster commercial opportunity, depending on the vaccine’s clinical profile and the ultimate competitive landscape” he told investors, after the release of ‘encouraging’ early data. (See Pfizer stock analysis on TipRanks)Related News: NuVasive Spikes 5% After-Hours On Sharp Procedure Rebound Intuitive Surgical Delivers Strong Quarter; But Analyst Says Sell Now Is Novavax’s (NVAX) Super-High Valuation Justified? This Analyst Says ‘Yes’TopicsBIONTECHBNTXPFEPFIZERLatest NewsAMC Lenders Allege Debt Default Following Silver Lake Deal- Report14mEricsson, Deutsche Telekom Sign Multi-Year 5G Deal; Analyst Bullish On ERIC43mLockheed Martin Beats Quarterly Estimates, Raises 2020 Outlook1hCheck Point Profit Tops Estimates Fueled By Remote Work Push1hBest Buy Pops 5% On Strong Online Sales; Top Analyst Ramps Up PT1hUnited Airlines Gains in After-Hours Despite $2.6 Billion Quarterly Loss1hAlphabet’s Waymo Expands Chrysler Partnership To Driverless Minivans2hPhillip Morris Beats Quarterly Estimates3hSEE MORETipRanks BlogWhich Leading Financial Blog Has the Best Bloggers?July 16, 2020Nasdaq Trade Talks Interviews TipRanks CEOJuly 15, 2020Meet the TipRanks Team – Eyal Gershon, Head of Product and UXJuly 15, 2020SEE MOREMore ArticlesAMC Lenders Allege Debt Default Following Silver Lake Deal- Report14 minutes agoEricsson, Deutsche Telekom Sign Multi-Year 5G Deal; Analyst Bullish On ERIC44 minutes agoLockheed Martin Beats Quarterly Estimates, Raises 2020 Outlook1 hour agoSEE MORE More recent articles from Smarter Analyst: * AMC Lenders Allege Debt Default Following Silver Lake Deal- Report * Ericsson, Deutsche Telekom Sign Multi-Year 5G Deal; Analyst Bullish On ERIC * Check Point Profit Tops Estimates Fueled By Remote Work Push * Best Buy Pops 5% On Strong Online Sales; Top Analyst Ramps Up PT

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Ericsson (ERIC) and Deutsche Telekom AG (DTEGY) have announced an expanded partnership with a new multi-year deal to deploy the service provider’s 5G Radio Access Network (RAN) across Germany.Under the terms of the deal, several mobile sites will be upgraded to the latest 5G technology standard over the next few years using Ericsson Radio System products and solutions. The 5G deal is in addition to a multi-RAN agreement following modernization of Deutsche Telekom’s 2G, 3G and 4G radio networks over the past two years.ERIC’s Spectrum Sharing solution will also be deployed, allowing Deutsche Telekom to dynamically manage 4G and 5G traffic in its network through efficient use of existing spectrum, enhancing coverage, performance and mobility.Claudia Nemat of Deutsche Telekom AG commented: “We are pleased to have found a leading 5G supplier in Ericsson as a partner, who has also convinced us in the past in the modernization of our mobile access network. After the reliable and on-time modernization, the bar for the 5G roll-out in the antenna network is naturally also high.”As well as public mobile networks, the two companies also work closely together when it comes to equipping industrial companies with private mobile networks, so-called campus networks. Most recently, the partners jointly equipped individual BMW and Osram (OSAGF) plant sites.Deutsche Telekom, the largest telecom service provider in Europe by revenue, has seen shares climb by 9% year-to-date, while Ericsson has surged 34%. Looking ahead, ERIC scores a Strong Buy Street consensus, with Deutsche Telekom showing a slightly more subdued Moderate Buy consensus.Speaking for the bulls, Charter Equity’s Edward Snyder wrote on July 17 “COVID notwithstanding, 2020 is playing out well for Ericsson.” He made the comment after Ericsson reported a $0.03 beat for the June quarter on strong 5G demand in North America and China. Impact from COVID-19 was minimal in the June period while demand for 5G equipment was strong in North America and China.Management doesn’t provide financial guidance, but according to Snyder, conference call comments suggest September period (3Q20) revenue and EPS of $6.3B and $0.17 respectively, above consensus revenue and EPS estimates of $6B and $0.15.The analyst continued: “The lumpy nature of network rollouts makes revenue timing difficult to predict, but between the timing of deployments in China, the U.S. and Europe and changes in the competitive environment, Ericsson’s fortunes in 5G are improving and already off to a strong start in 2020.” (See ERIC stock analysis on TipRanks)Related News: Logitech Ramps Up Annual Profit Outlook As Q1 Income Leaps 75% Synaptics Snaps Up DisplayLink For $305M In All-Cash Deal Texas Instruments Provides Upbeat Sales Outlook; Top Analyst Sees 18% Upside More recent articles from Smarter Analyst: * Check Point Profit Tops Estimates Fueled By Remote Work Push * Best Buy Pops 5% On Strong Online Sales; Top Analyst Ramps Up PT * Alphabet’s Waymo Expands Chrysler Partnership To Driverless Minivans * Two Harbors Ends Management Agreement, Citing Material Breaches

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(Bloomberg) — The U.S. sealed a pact for an initial 100 million doses of a Covid-19 vaccine Pfizer Inc. is developing with Germany’s BioNTech SE. President Donald Trump warned that the U.S. outbreak will probably get worse before it gets better.The coronavirus tightened its grip on the Asia Pacific region, with deaths reaching a daily high in Indonesia and infections hitting records in Hong Kong and Japan. Australia, once hailed as a virus success, also saw cases set a daily record.Aviation regulators in the European Union and Singapore are working together to establish health measures and facilitate a recovery of air travel.Key Developments:Global Tracker: Cases near 15 million; deaths pass 617,000Month into the outbreak, U.S. testing still isn’t rightNew York taxes will stalk those who fled pandemicPreschooler parents are facing tough choices as offices reopenU.K. oil industry at odds with government on mass testingSubscribe to a daily update on the virus from Bloomberg’s Prognosis team here. Click CVID on the terminal for global data on coronavirus cases and deaths.Tokyo Urges Stay-Home Weekend; Japan Cases Hit Record (8:10 a.m. NY)Tokyo Governor Yuriko Koike told residents to avoid unnecessary trips outdoors as much as possible during a forthcoming four-day weekend as the city’s running total topped 10,000 and new cases nationwide were reported to hit a new daily record. Japan’s capital had another 238 cases on Wednesday. The long weekend was originally scheduled to celebrate the start of the now-postponed Tokyo Olympic Games.Zimbabwe Imposes Curfew to Curb ‘Frightening’ Spread (7:46 a.m. NY)Zimbabwe imposed a dusk-to-dawn curfew and warned of stiff penalties for people who break quarantine rules. The number of infections almost doubled to 1,713 by Tuesday, from 985 a week earlier, as deaths jumped by 40% to 26.U.S. Seals Deal for Millions of Vaccine Doses (7:13 a.m. NY)U.S. health officials agreed on an order as many as 600 million doses of a vaccine made by Pfizer and BioNTech, the latest step in an effort to fight the coronavirus pandemic. The U.S. government will pay the companies $1.95 billion upon the receipt of the first 100 million doses, following FDA authorization or approval, according to a statement, with an option to acquire up to an additional 500 million doses.Indonesia Has Record Daily Virus Deaths (5:16 p.m. HK)Coronavirus deaths in Indonesia hit a record daily high of 139 in the past 24 hours, taking the total to 4,459, official data showed on Wednesday. New cases jumped by 1,882 to 91,751.The world’s fourth-most populous nation has seen a surge in cases since June with the government relaxing some curbs in a bid to reboot the economy.Separately, a survey showed that two out of three Indonesians oppose continuing strict social-distancing orders. Bali, Indonesia’s most popular holiday destination, is pressing ahead with a plan to welcome back visitors.Hong Kong Warns of ‘Severe Moment’ (4:45 p.m. HK)Hong Kong reported a record 105 new local virus cases as the city’s “most severe” situation since the epidemic began prompted health officials to expand protection measures.Of the additional local cases, 63 were not linked to previous cases, according to data from the city’s health department on Wednesday. “I urge all citizens to stay in their homes and stop unnecessary outings,” Sophia Chan, secretary for food and health, said in a briefing.Masks will have to be worn in Hong Kong’s indoor public venues — including malls, shops, supermarkets, markets and building lobbies — from Thursday through Aug. 5, Chan said.Korean Workers Return From Iraq With Covid (4:22 p.m. HK)A total of 45 construction workers who returned to South Korea from Iraq last week have tested positive with coronavirus, Yonhap News reported, citing the Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.The chartered flight brought back 105 workers on July 14. Two military planes are due to head to Iraq on Thursday to repatriate 297 others.Iraq has recorded more than 97,000 confirmed cases of Covid-19, while South Korea has kept its infection levels below 14,000, according to Johns Hopkins University.Russia Has Almost 6,000 New Cases (3:32 p.m. HK)Russia recorded almost 5,862 new cases in the past day, bringing the total to 789,190, according to data from the government’s virus response center. A total of 165 people died in the same period, lifting Russia’s death toll to 12,745.Russia’s daily case numbers peaked at about 11,700 in May and have been declining slowly since then, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University.Osaka New Cases Record (3:14 p.m. HK)Osaka prefecture, Japan’s third-largest by population, found a record 120 new coronavirus cases Wednesday, Governor Hirofumi Yoshimura told reporters at a press conference.Thailand to Extend Emergency, Allow Film Crews (3:03 p.m. HK)Thailand plans to extend its state of emergency by one month, to Aug. 31, while also allowing more foreigners to enter the country.Although borders remain closed to most foreign visitors, more than 100,000 migrant workers from Myanmar, Cambodia and Laos will be allowed to enter in the next round of easing. Film crews will also be allowed to enter, the Department of Tourism said.Taiwan Imposes Quarantine on H.K., Australia Travelers (2:40 p.m. HK)Travelers from Hong Kong and Australia will need to undergo a 14-day quarantine after Taiwan dropped them from its list of low to mid Covid-19 risk, the Centers for Disease Control said in a statement. Travelers from low-risk or mid- to low-risk areas can apply for a shorter quarantine period.Foreigners will be allowed to enter Taiwan for medical treatment from Aug. 1, provided they present relevant medical documents and negative test results for Covid-19. The foreigners must undergo a 14-day quarantine and get another negative test result before receiving medical treatment.Singapore, EU Aviation Regulators Working on Health Steps (2:26 p.m. HK)The Civil Aviation Authority of Singapore and European Union Aviation Safety Agency are working together to establish health safety measures and facilitate the recovery of air travel, according to a joint press release.Evotec Gets Contract to Develop Virus-Treatment Process (1:54 p.m. HK)The U.S. Department of Defense awarded a unit of Evotec SE a contract worth as much as $18.2 million to develop and manufacture monoclonal antibodies for treatment or prevention of coronavirus.India Death Tally Passes Spain’s (1:14 p.m. HK)India reported 648 new deaths Wednesday to take its total to 28,732, passing Spain to rank seventh globally in deaths, according to data compiled by John Hopkins University. The country already ranks third in the number of infections. Deaths in India so far have lagged the casualty rate seen elsewhere — aided partially by the country’s younger population mix — but fatalities are gaining momentum.New Zealand Near Maximum Size for Quarantine System (11:59 a.m. HK)New Zealand’s housing minister said the country can house about 6,900 people in 32 quarantine hotels, with no plans to boost that capacity in the near term. Occupancy of the hotels, currently at 44%, is projected to rise to 81% over next two weeks, Megan Woods said at a briefing Wednesday.A new arrangement linking passage to New Zealand to an available room will be in place from August, Woods said. Officials are giving each airline flying to New Zealand a rolling, 14-day quota of returnees to better align seat demand with the supply of quarantine rooms.Australia Sets Record for Cases (10:44 a.m. HK)Australia suffered its worst day of coronavirus infections, with Victoria state recording 484 new cases as a second wave threatens to derail the nation’s economic recovery.After initial success in containing the virus, Australia is battling a spike in Victoria, which has forced around 5 million people in Melbourne back into lockdown. The shutdown of the nation’s second-biggest city, which contributes about one-quarter of gross domestic product, could prolong the nation’s first recession in almost three decades.Singapore Looks to Resume Business Events (10:29 a.m. HK)Singapore is preparing for the resumption of business events such as meetings, conventions, exhibitions and trade shows as economic activities restart, according to a statement by the Singapore Tourism Board. STB has developed a risk-management framework for business events with as many as 50 attendees, based on strict safe management measures, according to Wednesday’s statement.A government minster said Singapore will step up enforcement of social distancing measures after more people gathered in public areas over the weekend.South Korea Has 63 More Cases, Biggest Gain in 2 Weeks (9:24 a.m. HK)South Korea reported 63 more Covid-19 cases in 24 hours, raising the total tally to 13,879, according to data from the Korea Centers for Disease Control & Prevention.Cathay Pacific in Pact With Airbus to Defer Jet Deliveries (9:08 a.m. HK)Cathay Pacific Airways Ltd. said it reached an agreement with Airbus SE to defer aircraft deliveries as part of its move to preserve cash amid slowing business due to the coronavirus pandemic.The delivery of A350-900s and A350-1000s will be delayed to 2020-2023 from 2020-2021, while A321neo deliveries will be changed to 2020-2025 from 2020-2023, the airline said in a statement to the Hong Kong stock exchange. The company is in advanced negotiations with Boeing Co. to defer 777-9 deliveries.Mexico Cases, Deaths Continue to Rise (8:22 a.m. HK)Mexico reported 6,859 new Covid-19 cases, bringing the total to 356,255, according to data released by the Health Ministry Tuesday night. Deaths rose 915 to 40,400. The country has the seventh-most cases in the world, according to data from Johns Hopkins University.U.S. Says China Hackers Stole Secrets, Sought Virus Data (8:13 a.m. HK)The U.S. accused two Chinese hackers of working for Beijing to steal or try to steal terabytes of data, including coronavirus research, from Western companies in 11 nations — the second time in a week a foreign nation has been singled out for vaccine-related hacking.Japan Backs Dexamethasone as Coronavirus Treatment (7:23 a.m. HK)Japan’s health ministry approved the use of dexamethasone, a steroid, as second drug for coronavirus treatment, according to public broadcaster NHK. Meanwhile, the government will forgo lifting restrictions on large-scale events on Aug. 1, maintaining the cap of 5,000 people for the time being, Sankei reported.For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.comSubscribe now to stay ahead with the most trusted business news source.©2020 Bloomberg L.P.

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Investors are expected to exploit the widest price gap in Alibaba Group Holding shares, after a rally in Hong Kong drove its valuation above those listed in New York. The opportunity, though, may be fleeting in a volatile market.The e-commerce giant's equity has gained 22.6 per cent this month through July 21. Its American depositary receipt, whose value is equivalent to eight Hong Kong-listed shares, rose by 19.6 per cent in the same period.An investor who exchanges the ADRs at the equivalent of HK$249.88, based on overnight closing prices in New York, could on-sell them in Hong Kong for HK$254.80 each, assuming no transaction costs.As both instruments are fungible, ADR holders would need to switch into local shares before they can exploit the 2 per cent price differential in Hong Kong, a trade known as arbitraging in stock market parlance.Jack Ma, China's richest man, controls about 50 per cent of the voting interest in Ant Group. Photo: EPA-EFE"The price gap will lead investors to do the arbitrage trade," said Louis Tse Ming-kwong, managing director of VC Asset Management. "Investors who have bought Alibaba in the US since its listing in 2014 will find it is a good opportunity to shift into Hong Kong shares now."The bounce in Alibaba shares follows an emphatic rally in its stock after an announcement by Ant Group, the operator of Alipay payments system valued at US$200 billion, about a concurrent stock offerings in Shanghai and Hong Kong.Alibaba, which owns about one-third of Ant based on recent filings, is the owner of the South China Morning Post.The arbitrage opportunity has also arisen amid a bullish mood across mainland and Hong Kong bourses since the Chinese government imposed a controversial national security law in the city on June 30 to help restore social order.A slew of mega listings involving Chinese technology firms has also underpinned the flow of hot money into the Hong Kong financial market. Since Alibaba's secondary listing in November, its US-listed peers including JD.com and NetEase have also followed suit.Their "homecoming" may have prompted index compiler Hang Seng Indexes Company to create a gauge to track 30 of the largest technology firms in Hong Kong. The Hang Seng Tech Index will kick off on July 27. Their entry into the benchmark Hang Seng Index could be decided in August, after the compiler concluded a round of public consultations in May.Still, the window of arbitrage opportunity can open and shut rather quickly, just like in December. Alibaba stock fell 3.5 per cent to HK$248 as the broader market tanked, narrowing the price gap. It remains to be seen how the ADRs will react. Hong Kong stock exchange to get new tech index tracking Alibaba, Tencent and 28 other peersOn top of arbitraging, the jostle for Alibaba shares may have also been driven by such early positioning by fund managers who typically track index-component stocks. Alibaba alone accounts for more than 8 per cent weight in the proposed tech index, based on a simulation."Many international fund houses could take the opportunities" to switch, said Tom Chan Pak-lam, chairman of Hong Kong Institute Securities Dealers, an industry body of brokers. "They may not move back to the US markets for fear that the Trump administration may restrict US funds from investing in Chinese tech firms."Investors have switched into 57.64 million of Alibaba shares in Hong Kong since its secondary listing, according to exchange data. There are 4.81 billion shares kept in the Hong Kong clearing house as on Monday, or 22.4 per cent of its capital."Hong Kong is the home market for Chinese tech companies," Chan added. "Hong Kong investors are more familiar with these companies. As such, it may be natural for Hong Kong-listed shares to be trading at a premium over those in the US."This article originally appeared in the South China Morning Post (SCMP), the most authoritative voice reporting on China and Asia for more than a century. For more SCMP stories, please explore the SCMP app or visit the SCMP's Facebook and Twitter pages. Copyright © 2020 South China Morning Post Publishers Ltd. All rights reserved. Copyright (c) 2020. South China Morning Post Publishers Ltd. All rights reserved.

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(Bloomberg) — Wirecard AG had repeated contact with Angela Merkel’s chancellery in the months before its collapse, according to a chronology of events by her office.Merkel has come under pressure to clarify her interactions with the digital payments company after the chancellery confirmed that the German leader promoted Wirecard during a trip to China in September 2019 after her office was informed of ongoing investigations.Opposition lawmakers are threatening to call for a parliamentary investigation as they press Merkel’s administration over how it pursued fraud allegations against Wirecard, a member of Germany’s benchmark DAX index.Underscoring the impact of the scandal, the finance committee in Germany’s lower house of parliament plans to interrupt the summer recess to hold a special session on July 29 to discuss the firm’s collapse. Finance Minister Olaf Scholz and Economy Minister Peter Altmaier have been invited.Munich prosecutors on Wednesday scheduled an ad hoc press conference to inform about the “latest developments” in their Wirecard probe. The investigators declined to say beforehand what the announcement will be. The press conference is scheduled for 3:30 p.m. local time.Here’s a time line of interactions between the German government and Wirecard as laid out by the chancellery:Nov. 19, 2018: Digitalization czar Dorothee Baer visited Wirecard’s offices in AschheimNov. 27, 2018: Wirecard’s then-CEO Markus Braun requested a meeting with Merkel and her chief of staffJan. 22, 2019: Merkel’s office turned down the request and instead offered an appointment with Merkel’s economic adviser Lars-Hendrik Roeller, which Braun canceledAug. 23, 2019: Finance Ministry relays information to Roeller about Wirecard, including market-manipulation probes, in preparation for a meeting with a company representativeSept. 3, 2019: As part of preparations for a trip to China, Merkel meets Wirecard representative Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg, a former defense minister who resigned in disgrace over plagiarism. Guttenberg follows up with an email about Wirecard’s plans to acquire Chinese company Allscore Financial to gain a license in the Asian countrySept. 5-7, 2019: Merkel mentions Wirecard’s plans during her trip to China. “At the time of her trip she had no knowledge of possibly severe irregularities at Wirecard,” the chancellery said, adding that the company wasn’t part of the delegationSept. 8, 2019: Roeller informs Wirecard of the discussion and offers additional followup. He asked for and had contact with Germany’s ambassador in Beijing and China’s ambassador in Berlin about Germany’s economic interests in China, but didn’t further follow up on the Allscore acquisitionSept. 11, 2019: Roeller has meet and greet with Wirecard officials, who speak broadly about Asian activitiesMay 20, 2020: Braun holds a telephone discussion with Roeller. He rejects press reports of accounting irregularities and promises a thorough clarification.June 10, 2020: As the head of a DAX company, Braun takes part in a video conference about Germany’s coronavirus tracking app with MerkelJune 30, 2020: Merkel informed of the accounting scandal and Wirecard’s insolvencyAsked whether Roeller should have warned Merkel about Wirecard before her China trip, Merkel’s deputy spokeswoman Ulrike Demmer said on Wednesday: “If we had known what we know today about a financial scandal which led to the bankruptcy of a DAX company, this is true, but the knowledge at that point of time was a different one.”For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.comSubscribe now to stay ahead with the most trusted business news source.©2020 Bloomberg L.P.

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Novavax CEO Stanley Erck and three other executives would earn the options, worth $101 million at Tuesday’s closing stock price, if the company’s vaccine candidate enters a mid-stage clinical trial – regardless of its eventual success, according to a company filing. The incentive plan, which has not been previously reported, allows the executives to start exercising the options a year after Novavax starts the so-called Phase 2 trial, as it expects to do soon.

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(Bloomberg) — For the first time since the West’s five energy supermajors were created in the early 2000s, all of them are set to post a quarterly loss.Once a money-making machine, Big Oil is now relying on ever-increasing amounts of debt, raising the pressure on highly prized dividends. BP Plc may cut its payout for the first time since the Deepwater Horizon disaster a decade ago.The sheer scale of global oil demand destruction — some 30 million barrels a day, or a third of regular usage, in April — sent energy markets into a second-quarter tailspin, from which they’ve only recently started to recover. Worst-in-a-generation oil prices combined with OPEC production cuts, collapsing refining margins and millions of barrels of unsold crude mean no facet of Big Oil’s business has emerged unscathed.“There really hasn’t been anywhere to hide, even in the integrated model,” said Noah Barrett, a Denver-based energy analyst at Janus Henderson,which manages $294 billion. “Terrible quarter, but it’s behind us now. The focus will be on how the recovery takes shape.”DividendsFor BP, analysts from banks including Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and Citigroup Inc. are expecting a cut in the payout of anywhere between 30% and 65%, a historic move for a company that has been a cornerstone dividend payer in the U.K.’s FTSE 100 Index for decades. It would reduce the amount of debt needed and free up cash for Chief Executive Officer Bernard Looney’s high-profile strategy to eliminate almost all of the carbon emissions from the company’s operations and the fuel it sells to customers.The move would follow Equinor ASA and Royal Dutch Shell Plc, which cut its dividend for the first time since World War II earlier this year.Exxon Mobil Corp., Chevron Corp. and Total SA aren’t expected to follow suit, though analysts at Goldman reckon a cut at Exxon “could enable a financially healthier company.”DebtBig Oil borrowed some $80 billion during the quarter, giving it a whopping cash balance of $194 billion to see it through an intense period of losses as well as scheduled debt repayments this year and in 2021, according to Jefferies Financial Group Inc. But this will increase net-debt-to-capital ratios, a key measure of indebtedness.European majors will remain more indebted than their U.S. rivals, but dividend cuts may bring some relief. Despite having low debt coming into the crisis, Exxon’s borrowing is rising rapidly and over time will become a cause for concern, according to Morgan Stanley and Goldman. Exxon’s net debt climbed by $8.8 billion in the the quarter and will surge to $78 billion by the end of 2022, Goldman said. Chevron's agreement to acquire Noble Energy Inc. this week includes the assumption of about $8 billion of additional borrowings. That still leaves the company well-placed to pay its dividend, CEO Mike Wirth said.RefiningRefining is seen as the “hedge” part of the Big Oil integrated model. When crude prices are down, refining is often unaffected because of lower feedstock costs, but that’s an “oversimplification,” according to Paul Cheng, a New York-based analyst at Scotiabank. When no one’s buying petroleum because of lockdowns to fight the global pandemic, all parts of the oil business suffer.A simple measure of refining profit, known as a 3-2-1 crack spread — it assumes three barrels of crude makes two of gasoline and one of diesel-like fuels – slumped to its lowest level for the time of the year since 2010. Refineries have also been running at reduced levels and changing their product mix due to a worse market for jet fuel compared with gasoline.Exxon, which has massive refining operations, will be affected the most by this trend. Chevron may also suffer from challenges to its operations on the West Coast, Cheng said.EarningsResults will reflect a tumultuous quarter in which Brent crude averaged about $33 a barrel, less than half the level a year earlier, but with a massive spread between the high and low points of some $20. That throws further uncertainty into the mix for trading and derivatives.“Our team has forecasted earnings for 72 quarters and 2Q20 seems the most difficult of them,” Jason Gammel, a London-based analyst at Jefferies Financial Group Inc., said in a note to clients.ImpairmentsShell and BP got the bad news out of the way in June by disclosing they would write down as much as $22 billion and $17.5 billion respectively in the second quarter as the pandemic hammered the long-term valuations of everything from oil to liquefied natural gas. Chevron took an $11 billion hit in December related to its U.S. natural gas assets. Exxon is yet to take such an impairment.The two U.S. majors may come under pressure from analysts to reveal more information on how they value their assets because they don’t provide the same disclosures as their European peers. Climate-conscious investors want Exxon and Chevron to disclose their long-term forecasts for crude prices as the Covid-19 pandemic heightens uncertainty about the demand outlook for fossil fuels. The New York State Common Retirement Fund, California State Teachers’ Retirement System and Ceres, a Boston-based coalition of investors with $30 trillion of assets, this month called on them to provide such estimates, in part to avoid ending up with uneconomic assets.Shell and Total report on July 30,  Exxon and Chevron on July 31, and BP on Aug. 4.For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.comSubscribe now to stay ahead with the most trusted business news source.©2020 Bloomberg L.P.

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(Bloomberg Opinion) — Many of the recent stories are familiar, but still distressing and perplexing.There was the gentleman in Tucson who waited 27 days to get results from a Covid-19 test, only to discover he didn’t have the virus and the two weeks he spent in quarantine had been pointless. There was the nonprofit nursing home chain in the Phoenix area that waited five days for test results, only to learn that several staff members and residents had the coronavirus; the asymptomatic staffers had roamed freely until the results arrived. And there have been many tales of Arizona residents waiting a week, on average, to get test results — and sometimes much longer — even though their state has been a coronavirus hotspot for more than a month. Texas, Florida, California and many other newly resurgent corona-states have similar stories.Test results, to be useful, should arrive in less than two days. If they take longer, opportunities to isolate infected people and trace their contacts with others wither, undermining broader containment efforts. So why can’t the wealthiest and most innovative country in the world have more rapid-fire testing during a pandemic?Several other wealthy countries already set good examples around testing that the U.S. might have emulated, measures including national testing strategies and aggressive contact tracing. The U.S. also had a lag between its first coronavirus outbreaks in the spring and the current surge, which gave private and public stakeholders in the testing community a chance to catch up. Yet even though testing has ramped up massively — to about 780,000 tests a day, from 145,000 per day in early April — some experts say that to combat the coronavirus effectively the country should be conducting at least 5 million tests a day. Federal health authorities recently said the U.S. has already reached its daily testing capacity, but by fall should have the ability to conduct about 1.3 million to 1.7 million tests a day. That would be an improvement, but clearly not enough — especially if a second coronavirus wave washes across America come October or November.Even now, the spread of the virus has outpaced testing increases. (In Arizona, in-state testing volume jumped 50% while the growth in new Covid-19 cases exceeded 100%.) More testing isn’t a solution anyhow if results aren’t prompt. And the sheer number of cases in the U.S. adds to the problem. During the spring, coronavirus cases peaked at about 36,000 a day. Last Thursday, more than 75,000 infections were reported — a new record. That same day, a bipartisan group of health care experts, scientists, former senior public officials and investors released a report warning of further economic and social devastation if Covid-19 is left unchecked.“Testing is the only way out of our present disaster, and it will remain the case until a vaccine or effective therapeutics are widely available,” noted the report, which was sponsored by the Rockefeller Foundation. The authors call for $75 billion in immediate public spending to buttress the testing effort, which would be “the single best investment America could make in averting an even more tragic and pending disaster.”Even if you don’t believe the coronavirus has brought on an apocalypse, it still makes sense to fix and fortify national testing to protect public health before other disasters arrive. A civilized, equitable and well-functioning country shouldn’t be satisfied with the current testing regime. Rather, it should set to work to establish effective public-private partnerships, embrace the role of the federal and state governments as problem solvers, and hold the private sector to higher standards.While the Trump administration and the federal government have drawn ample criticism for leadership failures around testing, the private sector has also proved unequal to the epic challenges a pandemic presents.Federal agencies such as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, state labs and hospitals all provide testing services, but commercial labs dominate the market. The clinical testing business, which generates annual revenue of about $80 billion, has a number of big players, including ARUP Laboratories, BioReference Laboratories, Mayo Clinic Laboratories, and Sonic Healthcare Ltd. But two aggressive competitors, Quest Diagnostics Inc. and Laboratory Corporation of America Holdings, dominate the field.Quest earned $858 million on revenue of $7.7 billion in 2019. The company says its operations “touch the lives” of 30% of the U.S. adult population and it boasts of relationships with about half of all physicians and hospitals in the country. LabCorp earned $824 million on revenue of $11.5 billion last year. It says it interacts with 3 million patients weekly, controls proprietary data derived from 35 billion lab test results (which includes about 50% of the U.S. population), and has contributed to the development of all 50 of the country’s top-selling drugs.Both companies were assembled through decades of mergers and acquisitions, diagnostic ingenuity and an unrelenting focus on expanding their market share. Quest and Labcorp are preferred or exclusive providers for many of the largest private health insurance companies in the U.S., and they process a large portion of tests covered by Medicare and Medicaid.Quest, in its securities filings, describes the testing market as “fragmented and highly competitive.” But Quest and LabCorp’s sales suggest they jointly control about a quarter of the business. Smaller competitors have complained over the years that Quest and Labcorp’s tight relationships with insurers and the federal government make it hard for them to break into health care networks to offer alternatives. Some consumers have alleged that the companies charge exorbitant prices for tests administered to uninsured patients, and both companies have drawn scrutiny for possibly overbilling Medicare and Medicaid (charges that they’ve denied).In the spring, questions about how readily insurers would cover charges from all companies for Covid-19 tests, along with many patients’ reluctance to visit doctors’ offices, brutalized the testing industry’s bottom line. Quest and LabCorp seem to have weathered this better than most; the stocks of both companies are trading around their 52-week highs. Yet even they haven’t been able to meet the testing demands imposed by Covid-19.As the virus rampaged in June and July, both companies, having rapidly upped their testing game, still lagged. A three-to-five-day turnaround time for test results they announced at the end of June gave way to a four-to-five-day delay by the first week of July. After announcing the second delay, Quest said it didn’t expect to get any faster until the coronavirus stopped spreading nationally. Don’t expect that to happen anytime soon. In an interview with the Financial Times on Tuesday, a senior Quest executive said “it will be impossible” for his company “to increase coronavirus testing capacity to cope with demand during the autumn flu season.”That leaves patients, hospitals and society in a bind. Consider Arizona, which has the highest Covid-19 positivity rate of any state. The virus has spread there so quickly and deeply that a public health official in the state’s most populous county has said contact tracing may have become worthless. Sonora Quest Laboratories — a partnership between Quest and the Banner Health hospital chain — handles 80% of Covid-19 tests in Arizona, making it the largest testing network in the state. And it can take 11 days for Sonora Quest to deliver test results.Arizona Governor Doug Ducey, a Republican caught flat-footed by the outbreak, recently channeled $1 million in state funds to Sonora Quest to help buy equipment to process tests more quickly. He’s also started pushing a new testing partnership with Arizona State University, and he’s working with the federal government to set up free testing sites. Perhaps he will have better luck than Phoenix Mayor Kate Gallego, a Democrat, who said she requested federal testing sites in April and was rebuffed by the White House.But Ducey comes late to his testing push, having been reluctant to impose other public health measures such as stay-at-home orders, masks and lockdowns. And regardless of his new incentives, it’s not clear how quickly Sonora Quest can ramp up testing and improve turnaround times.Another governor decided to circumvent the major labs altogether. New York’s Andrew Cuomo, a Democrat, has advised his state’s residents to patronize local labs rather than Quest or LabCorp to get timely test results. About 70% of New York’s tests are now processed by 200 local labs that return results in one to three days, the state said.Smaller labs around the country have excess capacity they’re unable to deploy because they haven’t been able to break into the insurance networks dominated by the big guys. And labs of all sizes struggle to operate at full capacity because a balkanized supply chain forces them to compete against one another for frequently scarce resources.Those resources include reagents (the chemicals labs use to detect the presence of a virus), swabs for collecting patient samples, personal protective equipment, tubes and other media used to transport samples, and proprietary test kits that work with diagnostic machines from companies such as Hologic Inc., Thermo Fisher Scientific Inc. and Abbott Laboratories. Those kits are a special challenge because they’re not interchangeable: Labs that use machines made by Hologic, for example, can’t use kits designed for machines made by Thermo Fisher. A dearth of testing kits was a problem in the spring. Now there’s a dearth of testing machines. All of this has become a tar pit for labs and their employees working around the clock.To top it off, the testing industry has technology and data challenges. As the New York Times recently detailed in a bit of startling reporting, some test results are still transmitted via fax machines and traditional mail, 80% of Covid-19 test results lack demographic information, and 50% have no associated addresses. Privacy requirements explain much of the problem, but it nonetheless hobbles testing during a pandemic.Will companies sort this out on their own? No, because they’re competing against one another. Can states help? No, they’re competing against one another, too. That leaves the federal government as the logical referee. It’s Washington that can define and coordinate a national testing program, provide financial incentives to companies to speed things up, help steer resources so as to rationalize supply chains, and revivify a dilapidated public health infrastructure undermined by years of staffing and budget cuts.However, the possibility of federal action collides with longstanding suspicion, and often outright hostility, in the U.S. toward centralized public health guidance and services. Countering that sentiment, and driving a national testing strategy, will require creative and purposeful leadership from Washington — and from the White House in particular.When Covid-19 first escalated in the spring, President Donald Trump briefly came to recognize there was battle to be fought. “I view it as a, in a sense, a wartime president,” he said in March. “It’s a medical war. We have to win this war. It’s very important.”But one month after setting up a coronavirus task force in the White House and putting his son-in-law, Jared Kushner, in charge of expanding testing, Trump effectively shifted primary responsibility for the battle to the states. It was as if, during World War II, Franklin D. Roosevelt had told governors to devise their own military strategies and produce their own tanks, ships and planes.During the brief period the White House took the reins, some progress was made. More testing sites were opened and significant supply chain problems were tackled. An effort to offer drive-through testing services in commercial parking lots got underway. But Trump’s promise in the spring that “anybody that wants a test can get a test” wasn’t true then and it’s still not true today — largely because the president failed to forge a national consensus around testing in partnership with governors and public and private laboratories.More recently, Trump has repeatedly denounced testing. And the White House has been trying to cut billions of dollars for testing and other public health initiatives that Republicans in Congress want baked into the next round of bailout funding. At a press briefing on Tuesday, Trump declined to say whether he personally supported further funding for testing. In the midst of a national crisis, that animus toward testing is reckless and dangerous.Whoever is elected president in November may be enjoying his victory just as Covid-19 unleashes a brutal winter surge. Whether that’s Trump or Joe Biden, he will need to put the weight of the federal government behind initiatives to bolster public health services generally and break the testing logjam specifically.An obvious first step would be for the White House to help speed up the creation and distribution of simple point-of-care tests that can be used in doctors’ offices, private residences, nursing homes, schools — anywhere they’re needed outside of laboratory settings, especially in underserved, low-income communities. These tests can produce results in an hour or less, but also have significant accuracy problems. There’s already ample research underway to improve POC tests, and the federal government has approved a small number for emergency use, including devices from Abbott, Quidel Corp. and Becton, Dickinson and Company. But there’s much work to be done there.The U.S. has been playing catch-up on coronavirus testing almost from the start, ever since the faulty Covid-19 test the CDC sent to labs in early February turned out to be disastrously ineffective. Since then the government, which previously handled the development and distribution of diagnostic tests, has granted a series of emergency approvals for private companies to produce new tests. In contrast, Germany and South Korea have kept looser leashes on test development, bolstering their ability to test more broadly and effectively. The U.S. government would do well to continue loosening some of its testing regulations.On the other hand, the government could use its regulatory powers to suppress any anti-competitive practices that some of the bigger testing companies may be engaging in. A more muscular interpretation of the Defense Production Act would also enable the White House to resolve myriad supply problems, whether by ensuring the availability and compatibility of testing equipment or by smoothing access to such basics as swabs and reagents.The CDC, which Trump has undermined, could help institute a more effective testing regime by working with its traditional network of state public health agencies and private companies — if its budget was fortified and its regulatory and legal powers were enhanced. The CDC currently offers guidelines that states can take or leave. An empowered CDC should be authorized to devise enforceable rules that help rationalize how the testing industry operates.Analysts, experts and medical professionals from ideologically diverse institutions — including the American Enterprise Institute, Duke University, Harvard University, Johns Hopkins University and the Rockefeller Foundation — have recently issued detailed reports calling for bolder steps to streamline and reinvent the U.S. testing system. All of them advocate a broader role for the federal government, ranging from coordinating information and supplies and supporting POC innovations to providing financial incentives, establishing private-public mega-labs, and establishing task forces to help carry out these initiatives.The Harvard study goes so far as to call for the creation of a federal “Pandemic Testing Board” with “strong but narrow powers that has the job of securing the testing supply and the infrastructure necessary for deployment of testing.” The authors liken this to the War Production Board that the U.S. empowered for three years during World War II to supervise the production of weapons and military supplies.That makes sense to me. After all, we won World War II and we’re now at war with Covid-19. Even Trump knows that.This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners.Timothy L. O'Brien is a senior columnist for Bloomberg Opinion.For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com/opinionSubscribe now to stay ahead with the most trusted business news source.©2020 Bloomberg L.P.

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