Tag: Approved

Rien ne va plus

EVEN in a business where the house always wins, Steve Wynn is used to winning more than anyone else. The casinos that the billionaire has built, from The Mirage and Bellagio to Wynn Macau and Wynn Palace, helped transform Las Vegas and Macau from seedy gambling joints into luxury high-roller destinations. His fiercest rivals heaped praise on him as a visionary and perfectionist. His company, Wynn Resorts, enjoyed a “Wynn premium” from analysts and investors.

Now he could lose control of his empire. On January 26th the Wall Street Journal published an investigation detailing numerous allegations that would amount to a decades-long pattern of sexual misconduct by Mr Wynn. The board of Wynn Resorts has announced an inquiry by a special committee into the reports, the veracity of which Mr Wynn denies.

He has resigned as finance chairman of the Republican National Committee. Gaming commissioners in Nevada, Macau and…Continue reading

LUANN STOTTLEMYER has had diabetes for 23 years, but it was only in 2016 that her doctor prescribed a treatment that changed her life. It has allowed her to bring her blood-sugar levels under control and lose weight. Yet this miracle of modern science is not a new pill. It is a smartphone app called BlueStar.

The program is one of a growing number of apps that America’s Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has approved to treat everything from diabetes to substance abuse. The FDA has encouraged firms to join a scheme that aims to streamline the regulatory process for such treatments. There are many candidates: at least 150 firms globally are developing some form of “digital therapeutic” (“digiceutical” in the lingo), says Mark Sluijs, who advises Merck, a big American drugmaker.

Unlike other sorts of digital health apps, digiceuticals have been tested for efficacy, approved by regulatory agencies such as the FDA and are prescribed by a doctor. Most gather data, either by asking patients for information or by using sensors,…Continue reading

EUROPE is home to some extraordinary wealth creators who often try to hide their success. Ingvar Kamprad, a Swedish farmer’s son, constructed IKEA, a seller of flat-pack furniture that became a global giant with annual revenues of €38bn ($47bn). He died at the age of 91 on January 27th, after a famously frugal life. Amancio Ortega, the Spanish son of a railway worker, founded Inditex, a fast-fashion giant, and shuns any media attention. Then there is the reclusive Reimann family of Germany, members of which reportedly take a vow at the age of 18 not to talk publicly about their business, JAB Holding, a Luxembourg-based investment group.

Yet JAB’s habit of gulping down big, famous firms at a frenetic pace is making it hard for it to stay in the shadows. On January 29th it said it will pay $18.7bn in cash (plus some shares) to buy Dr Pepper Snapple, the world’s fifth-biggest maker of soft drinks, which has roots dating back to 1885. It will be combined with Keurig Green Mountain, an American…Continue reading

THE past decade has seen the smartphone become a portal for managing daily life. Consumers use their pocket computers to bank, buy and befriend. Now this array of activities is expanding into an even more vital sphere. Apple has spent three years preparing its devices and software to process medical data, offering products to researchers and clinical-care teams. On January 24th it announced the result. The next big software update for its iPhone will include a feature, Health Records, to allow users to view, manage and share their medical records. Embedded in Apple’s Health app, the new feature will bring together medical data from participating hospitals and clinics, as well as from the iPhone itself, giving millions of Americans direct digital control of their own health information for the first time.

Apple’s fellow tech giants are also on the march into medical services. On January 30th Amazon announced a partnership with Berkshire Hathaway and JPMorgan Chase to create a not-for-profit…Continue reading

Engro’s national mission

PAKISTAN’s enormous mineral wealth has long lain untapped. Since a 1992 geological survey spotted one of the world’s largest coal reserves in Thar, a scrubby desert in the southern province of Sindh, prospectors have hardly dug up a lump. Among those to flounder is a national hero. Samar Mubarakmand, feted for his role in Pakistan’s nuclear-weapons programme, has just shut the coal-gasification company he founded in 2010, when he vowed on live television to crack Thar.

Environmentalists, many from abroad, argue the reserve’s 175bn-ton bounty should remain underground. They point out the coal is lignite—dirty, poor-quality stuff that, in adding to carbon emissions, increases the risk of climate change for Pakistan. Other critics note that by locking itself into coal, Pakistan may miss out on the plummeting price of solar energy.

To such qualms, the government offers three rejoinders. First, severe power shortages have long…Continue reading

IN A few years, millions of people will use a messaging app to make instant payments to friends across the globe or in a digital marketplace. But instead of state-backed money, they will use a cryptocurrency, the Gram, denoted by a gemstone emoji. They will be able to pay to store data—and perhaps to view content—securely and away from governments’ prying eyes. All of this will take place on a single platform, TON, or “The Open Network”, built by Telegram.

This is the vision that Telegram’s founders, the brothers Pavel and Nikolai Durov, are flogging to investors ahead of their initial coin offering (ICO). A “presale” round to institutional investors is under way, with a wider sale of Grams to retail investors expected in a few weeks. Reports suggest the offering could raise as much as $1.2bn, making it by far the largest ICO.

Compared with other firms selling tokens on the back of vague promises, Telegram has lots going for it. Its encrypted messenger app, particularly popular with the global crypto crowd, is…Continue reading

IN A few years, millions of people will use a messaging app to make instant payments to friends across the globe or in a digital marketplace. But instead of state-backed money, they will use a cryptocurrency, the Gram, denoted by a gemstone emoji. They will be able to pay to store data—and perhaps to view content—securely and away from governments’ prying eyes. All of this will take place on a single platform, TON, or “The Open Network”, built by Telegram.

This is the vision that Telegram’s founders, the brothers Pavel and Nikolai Durov, are flogging to investors ahead of their initial coin offering (ICO). A “presale” round to institutional investors is under way, with a wider sale of Grams to retail investors expected in a few weeks. Reports suggest the offering could raise as much as $1.2bn, making it by far the largest ICO.

Compared with other firms selling tokens on the back of vague promises, Telegram has lots going for it. Its encrypted messenger app, particularly popular with the global crypto crowd, is…Continue reading

DENMARK’S Maritime Museum in Elsinore includes one particularly unappetising exhibit: the world’s oldest ship’s biscuit, from a voyage in 1852. Known as hardtack, such biscuits were prized for their long shelf lives, making them a vital source of sustenance for sailors far from shore. They were also appreciated by a great economist, Irving Fisher, as a useful economic metaphor.

Imagine, Fisher wrote in “The Theory of Interest” in 1930, a group of sailors shipwrecked on a barren island with only their stores of hardtack to sustain them. On what terms would sailors borrow and lend biscuits among themselves? In this forlorn economy, what rate of interest would prevail?

One might think the answer depends on the character of the unfortunate sailors. Interest, in many people’s minds, is a reward for deferring gratification. That is one reason why low interest rates are widely perceived as unjust. If an abstemious sailor were prepared to lend a biscuit to his crewmate rather than…Continue reading

CANCER is a grim sort of growth market. By 2030 there will be over 22m new cases a year, up from 14m in 2012, according to the International Agency for Research on Cancer. But as the world marks World Cancer Day, on February 4th, scientists are speaking of a revolution in the battle to beat it. Money managers’ ears have pricked up. Oncology investing is “hot”.

The most straightforward way to invest in treating cancer is through shares in companies that sell blockbuster drugs. Alternatively, biotech indices track a basket of companies, of which typically 40% are oncology-related. Big Pharma now buys rather than builds much of its innovation. So backing oncology startups can be an especially lucrative (if risky) approach. According to CB Insights, a research firm, equity investment in cancer-therapeutics startups has grown from $2bn in 2013 to $4.5bn in 2017. Take Juno Therapeutics, founded in Seattle in 2013 to develop immunotherapy drugs. It was acquired on January 22nd by Celgene, a Biotech giant, for a whopping $9bn.

Eric…Continue reading

THE financial crisis a decade ago brought the glory days of private equity to a screeching halt. The debt-fuelled megadeals on which the industry had built its fame (or notoriety) seemed over. But on January 30th a group of investors led by Blackstone, the world’s largest private-equity firm, announced a $17bn deal to carve out Thomson Reuters’ financial and risk business (F&R), a financial-data provider. The deal would be Blackstone’s largest since the crisis. But if the megadeal is making a comeback, it is in a new guise.

In the mid-2000s, huge transactions abounded. Deals from 2006 and 2007 alone account for nine of the ten largest ever. But, looking purely at value, the only true drought in big deals was from 2008-12. Every year since 2013 has seen at least one buy-out of more than $10bn, according to the private-equity database of Thomson Reuters F&R itself.

But in many of these deals private-equity firms have taken the unfamiliar role of companions to corporate acquirers. In a $23.5bn deal in 2013 to acquire Heinz, Berkshire Hathaway, a conglomerate, split ownership equally with 3G Capital, a Brazilian private-equity firm. Even private-equity led acquisitions are today much more likely to involve institutional investors or corporations, rather than other private-equity firms. The consortium that Bain Capital cobbled together last year…Continue reading