Drug giant falls over fear its £13.4m chief has quit
RumouRs that Astra
Zeneca chief executive Pascal soriot is about to jump ship and head to an Israeli rival yesterday led investors to fear the drug maker could become open to another takeover bid.
Investors fled after an Israeli newspaper reported that soriot has met Teva, the world’s largest generic drug maker, where he could earn twice as much as the firm’s former boss and a signing-on bonus of up to £17.6m.
The City’s concern is that soriot’s departure will damage expectations for Astra’s drug pipeline and critical upcoming lung-cancer drug trial, which is seen as a key test of the boss’s research-heavy investment strategy.
soriot, who trained as a vet and was paid £13.4m in 2016, has led the Anglo- swedish firm since 2012, during which time he has committed to reinvigorating the firm’s research and development pipeline over ten years.
Any uncertainty around Astra’s pipeline could once again make it an acquisition target for fellow drug giant Pfizer, which failed in a highly controversial £70bn takeover bid in 2014. Both AstraZeneca and Teva declined to comment. Astra’s shares fell 3.5pc, or 179p, to 5013p.
Carillion saw shares rise by more than 10pc in early trading – a nice break from a brutal sell- off this week which has seen more than 70pc knocked off the firm’s share price following a profit warning.
But shares soon sank back into the red after oxfordshire County Council ended a ten-year deal to build schools and supply property management services, which was expected to be worth £500m.
shares in the construction firm fell 3.1pc, or 1.75p, to 55.45p.
The FTSE 100 saw a flat day of trading despite gains among retailers, falling by just 0.05pc, or 3.49 points, to 7413.44.
After spending all week getting bruised by analysts over its botched sale of a stake in Penguin Random House, textbook publisher Pearson was dealt another blow from Liberum yesterday, after the broker reiterated its ‘sell’ rating and gave the firm a 360p target price.
It said an 11.5pc drop in us college book operator Barnes and Noble Education’s stocks, on the back of poor results, highlighted long- standing ‘structural challenges’ in Pearson’s us business. shares rose 0.8pc, or 5p, to 629p.
Engineer Babcock International continued to trade near four-year lows, despite a strong update, as investors displayed caution towards new chief executive Archie Bethel.
Even though trading is in line with expectations and around 82pc of next year’s revenue is already booked, Bethel, who took over from long- standing boss Peter Rogers last August, still failed to win over punters. shares fell 1.4pc, or 12.5p, to 857p.
Premier Oil followed its discovery of 1bn barrels of oil in mexico earlier this week with a stellar set of results. It said oil production had increased 34.5pc year-on-year in the first six months, while debt and operating costs dropped.
But the results were largely priced in by the market already, and shares dropped by 0.4pc, or 0.3p, to 62.25p. Exhibition and conference group
ITE Group scaled the small cap index after revealing a 9pc likefor-like increase in revenues to around £58m, boosted by strong activity in moscow. shares hit their highest level since may, rising 7.9pc, or 12p, to 164p.