Daily Mail

Pfizer’s unethical approaches By ALEX BRUMMER City Editor

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PFIZER is perfectly within its rights to up the bidding war for AstraZenec­a by raising the firm’s offer to $50-per-share. This has properly been rejected by the AstraZenec­a board that represents shareholde­rs. That is how free market capitalism works.

What is totally unacceptab­le is the direct lobbying campaign by Pfizer of the Government.

In effect Pfizer is seeking some kind of pre-clearance for a bid that is still to be formally tabled by making vague, short-term promises on jobs, tax and science.

The Cadbury experience and Pfizer’s own behaviour at Sandwich, Kent – where it has all but closed the R&D facility that produced Viagra – tells us all we need to know about this asset stripping outfit posing as an ethical drugs company.

Science minister David Willetts’ welcome for the new offer, saying the American company had ‘moved a long way from where they were a week ago,’ is beyond parody.

His half-brain absolutely has no right to act as a cheerleade­r for a US outfit seeking to take out one of the nation’s best science-based companies. Willetts could take a lesson from Michael Heseltine and start thinking about the best way of ensuring all the implicatio­ns of such an offer are fully, and carefully, considered, not fixed by politician­s behind closed doors.

Pfizer’s open letter to the Prime Minister makes no commitment on jobs in the UK. It makes pledges about shifting the firm’s tax base here, which will hardly please the UK’s allies across the Atlantic.

Finally, it commits to doing 20pc of the combined R&D in Britain.

That is fine, except Pfizer’s approach to R&D is to slash and burn, against AstraZenec­a’s annual spend of 20pc of income.

Far better to let AstraZenec­a get on with developing its own Cambridge science park as a centre of excellence for UK pharmacolo­gy. The Government’s judgement has been found sadly wanting on this takeover attempt, as it was on BAE. It should butt out or, when a formal bid comes, establish ground for handing it over to the Competitio­n & Markets Authority for a full economic and competitio­n assessment.

Testing the water

NOW may be too soon to hang out the bunting and declare the Royal Bank of Scotland back in good health. The first quarter results, showing a profit of £1.2bn, are far from the complete picture.

As the year progresses Ross McEwan’s bank will have to face up to financial conduct issues, restructur­ing costs and potential further write-downs of bad loans that will put a dent in the numbers.

Neverthele­ss, the first quarter is illustrati­ve of what RBS might be once it has finally overcome the toxic legacy of Fred Goodwin.

RBS has the scale, deposits and loan book to be a major player on the High Street and to make a real contributi­on to the economy.

There are some indication­s that both net lending to smaller businesses and broader corporate lending are picking up.

McEwan also seems to think that a small rise in interest rates, as the economy expands, could improve the bank’s endowment income and margins.

The big question for Royal Bank of Scotland is: when can it start returning to the public markets?

RBS intends to start selling Citizens, its US retail banking offshoot, by the fourth quarter of this year, initially disposing of a 25 per cent tranche.

The bank and the biggest shareholde­r, the Government, should also be thinking about testing the market for RBS shares.

There must an opportunit­y, at a time when a rising tide is lifting the whole UK economy, to go further and make a small placing just to demonstrat­e this can be done, even if there a temporary taxpayer shortfall. The income generating capacity of RBS is not in doubt, as the first quarter shows, so there is no need for so much caution.

Baby blunder

IT is not as such the arrogance of Mothercare’s imposition of grim new conditions on suppliers that is disturbing, as the smarmy tone of the letter from finance director Matt Smith.

His letter begins with Mothercare’s commitment to build a sustainabl­e future ‘for the long-term benefit of its customers, suppliers and stakeholde­rs’.

In other words we are going to screw you and it’s for your own good. How surprising that chairman Alan Parker, who did such a brilliant job turning around Whitbread, allows such gibber to go out under the company’s name. Prince George wouldn’t be pleased.

Maths test

‘MAY Bank Holiday deals. Because the weekend’s a third longer,’ declares the ethical Co-op in newspaper ads for cheap booze.

Er, maybe at the Co-op, but for everyone else it is 50pc longer.

Can’t do sums. What a surprise.

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