Novartis announced that its Chief Executive Officer Joseph Jimenez has informed the board of directors of his desire to step down in 2018. The company’s board has appointed Vasant Narasimhan, its Global Head of Drug Development and Chief Medical Officer, to the position of CEO, effective February 1, 2018. Narasimhan is a member of the Executive Committee.
UBS is mulling over shifting its trading headquarters from London to Frankfurt inside the European Union (EU), post Brexit, as Bloomberg report.
The Swiss firm’s investment bank employs about 4,800 bankers globally and could move 250 or more jobs out of London to Frankfurt and other European locations, two of the people briefed on the deliberations said, asking not to be identified as the talks are private.
Swiss banks’ overall operating income fell last year for the fist time since 2012, Switzerland’s banking lobby said on Thursday, as the Alpine nation’s lenders grapple with negative interest rates and rising regulatory costs.
Switzerland’s banks, already hit by a clamp-down on tax evasion which has dampened the country’s position as a tax haven, saw aggregate operating net income fall 3.2 percent in 2016 to 62.5 billion Swiss francs ($65.1 billion).
"2016 was once again a difficult year for the banks in Switzerland," the Swiss Bankers Association (SBA) said while publishing its annual banking study.
Gilead Sciences Inc agreed to buy Kite Pharma Inc in a $11.9 billion deal on Monday, as it looks to fuel growth with an emerging class of cancer immunotherapies that are expected to generate billions.
Gilead will pay $180 per share in an all-cash deal, representing a 29.4 percent premium over Kite’s Friday close. Kite’s shares were trading up at $178.15 before the bell.
Tiffany today reported its financial results for the three months (“second quarter”) and six months (“first half”) ended July 31, 2017. In both periods, modest net sales increases and improved operating margins contributed to growth in diluted earnings per share. Management maintained its sales and earnings guidance for the full year ending January 31, 2018 (“fiscal 2017”), and provided guidance for the second half of the year.
Italy’s largest retail bank Intesa Sanpaolo said on Wednesday it had reached an agreement to buy Switzerland’s Banque Morval. "The agreement is in line with Intesa Sanpaolo’s strategic plan to strengthen its presence on international markets in the field of private banking," the two said in a joint statement, without disclosing the value of the acquisition.
Google and Walmart on Tuesday announced a partnership that would make the retailer’s products available on the internet giant’s online shopping mall.
The two companies said that next month Google would start offering Walmart products to people who shop on Google Express, the company’s online shopping mall. It’s the first time the world’s biggest retailer has made its products available online in the United States outside of its own website.
Global dividends hit an all-time quarterly record of $447.5 billion (€380.5 billion) in the second quarter of this year as growth accelerated to the fastest rate since 2015, according to new data.
The Janus Henderson Global Dividend Index revealed that the amount paid out in dividends globally increased 5.4% year-on-year on a headline basis – equivalent to an underlying rise of 7.2% once exchange rates, special dividends and other factors were taken into account. The asset manager raised its dividend forecast for the whole of 2017 to $1.208 trillion, up $50 billion since an initial forecast in January, following evidence of “more synchronised” global economic growth, an oil price rally and a revival in banking sector payouts.
