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AstraZeneca overtakes former takeover rival Pfizer
The British pharma giant has overtaken its US counterpart in terms of market capitalisation in the days leading up to the former’s quarterly earnings call on Thursday.
FTSE 100 constituent AstraZeneca (LON:AZN) has a market value of £189bn, having added 5.7% in 2023, while Pfizer (NYSE:PFE) on the New York Stock Exchange has dipped over 20% year to date, burning its market value to around £182bn.
Pzifer attempted a hostile takeover of its British rival in 2014, but its £55 per share offer proved unsuitable for voting shareholders.
AstraZeneca has been boosted by strong clinical results in its cancer and rare diseases research programmes.
Thursday’s trading statement is expected to top-line sales of US$10.7bn, core operating profit of US$3.5bn, and core diluted earnings per share of US$1.68.
As for the footsie, the index opened 0.15% lower at 7,902 this morning.
Sterling loses ground against dollar
The pound was knocked around 30 pips lower against the greenback in this morning’s Asia trading hours, cutting back 0.23% to 1.241 following a flat Sunday trade.
The long game remains bullish for the pound though, with year-to-date gains on the GBP/USD pair coming to over 2.8%.
It’s worth considering that UK inflation remains stickier than in the UK, placing greater emphasis on the Bank of England to maintain a more hawkish monetary policy over its US counterpart.
Cable remains higher year to date – Source: capital.com
Gold opened the week around the US$1,980 per ounce mark, slightly down from last week’s position due to the dollar ticking higher.
The euro gained on the pound this morning, with EUR/GBP edging 0.1% higher to 88.37p.
CentralNic has best-ever first quarter
CentralNic Group Plc (LON:CNIC) gross revenues for the first quarter came to US$194.9mln (£157mln) in the first quarter, according to the web services group’s trading update this morning, while adjusted EBITDA came to US$21.3mln
These figures represented 24% and 15% gains, respectively.
Year-on-year organic growth for the trailing twelve months ending March 31, 2023, is estimated at approximately 45% when the audited figures are released on May 15.
Cash increased to US$102.9 by the end of the quarter from US$95mln in the previous quarter, reducing net debt to 49.2mln, taking into account the impact of the company returning US$4.3mln to shareholders via the share buyback scheme.
Directors remain confident that the group will continue to trade at least in line with current market expectations.
In a major highlight in the quarter, the group renewed its partnership with Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) Bing to leverage CentralNic’s existing AI capabilities with ChatGPT.
Chief executive Michael Riedl commented on the results: "I am thrilled to announce that CentralNic has had an outstanding start to the year, achieving our best-ever first quarter. Our continued industry leadership and reputation for excellence have enabled us to secure key partnerships with some of the world's leading technology companies, including Microsoft.”
Shareholders will today vote on the group’s inaugural dividend, marking “a significant milestone in our commitment to enhance shareholder value through a progressive dividend policy and continued share buybacks”, said Riedl.
CentraNic was trading down at 117.00 in pre-market trades.
FTSE to open lower
FTSE 100 is expected to open lower this Monday, with pre-market trades pointing to a 0.15% dip on the blue-chip index.
Wall Street closed in a stronger position before closing for the weekend started, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average inching 22 points, or 0.07% higher at 33,809, and the S&P 500 rose 3.7 points, or 0.09% higher at 4,134.
Nasdaq Composite closed 12.9 points, or 0.11% higher at 12,072. However, US markets as a whole finished the weekly session lower.
European markets, meanwhile, eked out an all-time high with the CAC 40 in Paris closing the week at 7,577.
Don’t expect too much action on the UK earnings calendar today. Lok’nStore Group (LON:LOK) has its interim earnings call.
US earnings are more lively. All eyes are on First Republic Bank (NYSE:FRC), the San Fransisco regional lender that got particularly badly hit in the Marck mini-crisis. Investors will be expecting news on monetary outflows. Activision Blizzard (NASDAQ:NASDAQ:ATVI) is also providing results as well as Coca-Cola (NYSE:KO).
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