Glaxosmithkline (GSK) has agreed to take full control of its consumer healthcare joint venture from Novartis. It will buy the remaining 36.5% stake in the business, whose brands include Panadol and Sensodyne, for £9.2bn. It will also launch a strategic review of its nutrition products, including Horlicks to help fund the deal, and of its majority shareholding in an Indian consumer healthcare subsidiary (The Times £).
GSK no longer owns the UK brand for Horlicks, notes The Daily Mail. It sold this to Aimia Foods last year and closed a plant in Slough, Berkshire, were it was made.
Sky News points out GSK will, in future, enjoy 100% of the cash generated by the consumer healthcare business instead of just 63.5% - and, in theory, be able to raise its dividend as a result
The Evening Standard notes that fund manager Neil Woodford had argued that GSK should be broken up to focus management attention but he lost the argument and sold his stock last May – one of his better decisions, the newspaper says, because the shares have fallen 21% since.
Elsewhere, Tyson Foods has hired Goldman Sachs as it considers offloading TNT Crust, its pizza crust business, reports the Financial Times (£). It is also looking at selling two factories in Green Bay, Wisconsin.
Walmart (WMT), among the biggest foreign retailers in China, has dumped Alipay in preference for Tencent’s mobile payments app in western China. The Financial Times (£) says the move deals a fresh blow to Alibaba in the battle between the country’s largest technology groups to dominate the payments market.
A day after it was reported the rhetoric between China and the US was cooling, Reuters reports that China will soon announce a list of retaliatory tariffs on US exports to the country to counter an expected proclamation from the US of proposed new tariffs on Chinese imports, siting the state-run Global Times as its source. The World Trade Organisation told the BBC a fully-fledged trade war between the two superpowers would have “a severe impact on the global economy”.
On the home front, British exports could face tariffs from dozens of the European Union’s trading partners next year, lawyers have warned. The Times (£) says that about 70 nations holding EU free-trade agreements might refuse to recognise the UK as a member state from next March even though the EU promised to “notify” trading partners that Britain should be treated as a member during the 21-month Brexit transition period.
McDonald’s says it is “really close” to the point where all its packaging can be recycled, reports Sky News. Meanwhile, the burger giant will start phasing out plastic straws from its UK restaurants.
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