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André Schnidrig resigns as head of Alpiq.
tsf. Alpiq boss André Schnidrig, who will not be in office until January 2020, is already leaving his position for health reasons. He had already suspended the management of the energy company in February after a cancer diagnosis. The Chairman of the Board of Directors, Jens Alder, also temporarily assumed operational management. Schnidrig has now decided to fully focus on his recovery and resign from his executive position, Alpiq announced Tuesday.
As of April 1, 2001, Antje Kanngiesser will be the successor at the top of the energy provider. Then, Alder wants to limit himself to his presidency again. Kanngiesser was previously head of the Group’s Markets and Services division and a member of the group’s management at Alpiq’s competitor, BKW.
(sda / Reuters) A proposal by US President Donald Trump to change the dollar rate in the exchange dispute with China has been rejected by his own employees. Trump said this in person on Monday (local time) during an election campaign appearance in Dayton, Ohio.
“I go to my people (and say), ‘How about they move the dollar a little bit?'” Trump said. “‘Sir, we can’t do that,'” they would have responded, the US President continued. The exchange rate between the US dollar and the yuan should be freely determined by the market, his people stressed.
Trump has accused China of manipulating the local currency to gain economic advantage. However, the central bank in Beijing rejects it.
The United States also regularly accuses Switzerland of currency manipulation because the Swiss central bank SNB is intervening in the markets and is currently weakening the Swiss franc.
UBS President Axel Weber is apparently examining acquisition scenarios.
(Bloomberg) / tsf.
Regarding a possible merger of UBS, the Chairman of the Board of Directors, Axel Weber, is said to have put together a wish list of potential partners, according to reported circles, which includes Deutsche Bank AG and BNP Paribas SA in addition to the local competitor Credit Suisse (CS). As you can hear, a deal with the big Frankfurt bank is one of the most favored scenarios for Weber.
UBS and Deutsche Bank had already briefly considered a merger in 2019. However, the idea did not go beyond the first discussions. This was preceded by stalled negotiations on a merger of the mutual business in asset management.
During annual discussions about banking strategy, Weber has apparently been through various planning scenarios in recent days. Deutsche Bank management will hold its annual strategy meeting this week. UBS and Deutsche Bank declined to comment.
Weber was not only chairman of the Deutsche Bundesbank, but also a candidate for the post of director of Deutsche Bank. A UBS deal with the big Frankfurt bank would combine Deutsche Bank’s bond approach with the Zurich institute’s larger equity business.
A person familiar with the considerations reported that UBS remains the preferred option for Deutsche Bank in the medium term. Talks between the two banks last year failed due to differences of opinion on the valuation, he said.
Last week rumors surfaced again about a merger of the two big banks UBS and CS. The industry portal “Inside Paradeplatz” made the speculation public. The reasons for such mind games are earnings that have been eroding for years, pressure on margins in all areas of business, and depressed stock prices.
(dpa) American software giant Microsoft is strengthening its games division with the Xbox game console with a multi-billion dollar purchase. The company announced on Monday an acquisition agreement with Zenimax Media, the parent company of Bethesda Softworks, and several other well-known game developers.
Consequently, Microsoft pays 7.5 billion dollars. Zenimax and its studios are responsible for successful games like “Doom”, “Fallout” or “The Elder Scrolls” and, according to its own information, it has around 2,300 employees. The Washington, DC-based company was founded in 1999 and will continue to operate under the Microsoft corporate umbrella in its family structure and with its former management team.
The acquisition has not yet been approved by the relevant regulatory authorities. Microsoft expects to complete it in the second half of the current fiscal year. According to the group, the transaction should only have a “minimal” impact on operating profit. Investors were wary of the news, the stock barely reacted.
(dpa) Tesla’s competitor Nikola is under increasing pressure after accusations of allegedly misleading investors. The head and founder of fuel cell and electric car developer Trevor Milton announced his resignation on Monday night. At times, stocks in US pre-market trading plunged by more than a third. According to media reports, not only the US Securities and Exchange Commission, but also the Department of Justice, are investigating alleged false information.
The background for this is an attack by short seller Hindenburg Research, who recently accused Nikola’s boss, Milton, of several imposters in a thorough analysis and concluded that his company was ultimately a “complex fraud.” As a financial speculator, Hindenburg bets against Nikola and profits when the company’s shares fall. But so far Milton has been unable to adequately refute the allegations and even had to admit to bluffing at a major product presentation. Nikola had to admit that his electric truck wasn’t even driving a video presentation, but was rolling downhill without its own momentum.
Nikola competes with Tesla, among other things, in the development of pickup trucks and electric trucks. The Phoenix company in the US state of Arizona has been shaking the stock market since the middle of the year, sparking a huge euphoria there with ambitious growth plans. Investors, meanwhile, rated Nikola even higher than American auto giant Ford, although the company has yet to offer a single marketable product.
(awp / sda) Zurich (awp) The Swiss economy again reached a surplus of 1 billion in the second quarter of 2020. However, this was only half the previous year.
From April to June, Switzerland earned almost 10 billion Swiss francs more than it spent. This current account surplus was around 15 billion in the first quarter and just under 21 billion in the same period last year.
The main reason for the decline was the lower inflow of direct investment abroad, the Swiss National Bank (SNB) wrote in a statement on the evolution of the current account on Monday.
Specifically, total revenue in the reporting period was 146.8 billion Swiss francs, while expenses were 136.9 billion Swiss francs. This resulted in a current account surplus of 9.9 billion, although the figures are provisional and may still change relatively sharply.
The surplus, in turn, was due to a positive balance of goods and services of 16,400 million on the one hand. On the other hand, there was a decrease in primary income (income from labor and capital) of 3,200 million and a decrease in secondary income (current transfers) of 3,200 million.
The current account records all the income and expenses of an economy, so that in addition to pure trade in goods, trade in services (tourism, etc.), labor and capital income, as well as current transfers are included. . The decline in secondary income is typical for Switzerland and is mainly due to money transfers from foreigners to their home countries.
The SNB also provided information on the capital account, that is, on money flows across the border. This resulted in a net reduction of CHF 27.7 billion in assets and CHF 36.0 billion in liabilities.
Transactions by foreign-controlled financial and portfolio companies were decisive, he said. These would have reduced intra-group loans and investments abroad (direct investments). At the same time, parent companies abroad withdrew share capital from their subsidiaries in Switzerland.
The reduction on the asset side was offset by purchases of foreign currency by the National Bank (higher foreign exchange reserves). On the liability side, the internal transactions of commercial banks had the same effect: their liabilities with both banks and clients abroad increased.
The net international investment position decreased by 46.2 billion Swiss francs compared to the same quarter of the previous year to 779.2 billion Swiss francs.
(awp / sda) The pharmaceutical company Roche acquires the Irish biotech company Inflazome. The Basel-based company is thus expanding its portfolio with treatments for chronic inflammation.
Roche will receive full rights to the entire Inflazome portfolio, the Dublin-based company announced on Monday. According to information, these are pre-clinical and clinical low-molecular-weight NLRP3 inhibitors available orally for the treatment of chronic inflammation. Roche intends to further develop these inhibitors for a large number of indications.
As part of the transaction, Inflazome shareholders will receive an advance of 380 million euros, it is said. They are also entitled to additional conditional payments after certain product development milestones have been reached.
Inflazome was founded in 2016 by medical researchers Matt Cooper (University of Queensland, Australia) and Luke O’Neill (Trinity College Dublin, Ireland). The company claims to be a leader in the development of inflammasome inhibitors.
