Sunday, January 16, 2022

United Kingdom-based pharmaceutical giant GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) confirmed January 15 it had rejected three “unsolicited, conditional and non-binding proposals” by Unilever to acquire its Consumer Healthcare division, including one bid of GBP50 billion in value made on December 20, believing Unilever “fundamentally undervalued” the business and its potential.

News that Unilever attempted to buy GSK Consumer Healthcare for 50 billion pounds, split between GBP41.7 billion in cash and 8.3 billion in Unilever shares, was first reported by The Sunday Times, and subsequently confirmed by both companies. Had the latest acquisition offer gone through, it would have been the largest deal since the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic, and one of the biggest ever among companies listed on the London Stock Exchange.

A deal would likely mean integrating the GSK division into Unilever’s own beauty and personal care business, which has seen profit margins struggle under Covid-19 lockdowns and higher costs for plastics and petrochemicals.

A brief response on the Unilever website confirmed it “had approached GSK and Pfizer about a potential acquisition”, and adds GSK Consumer Healthcare “would be a strong strategic fit” as the company looks to rework its portfolio. GSK indicated the proposals were “carefully evaluated” by its board of directors, but unanimously rejected under the conclusion they “were not in the best interests of GSK shareholders” and “failed to reflect the intrinsic value of the business and its potential”.

The Sunday Times have indicated the latest deal did not include an acquisition premium or recognition of corporate synergies; the joint venture between GSK and healthcare firm Pfizer, which holds a minority stake in the company, was initially projected to generate GBP500 million in cost savings by this year and realise “substantial cost synergies”. The BBC’s business editor Simon Jack wrote that a standard takeover premium would be about 30%, but could be reduced over the GBP10 billion in debt GSK was predicted to “leave on the books”, of the GBP22 billion net debt GSK reported for Q3 2021.

The deals were assessed by the Board respective of a proposed demerger of GSK Consumer Health into a separate PLC in the middle of this year. Jack wrote GSK “always” had “an open mind to a trade sale to another party if the price was right.” Unilever did not take into account the standard takeover premium, the value of cost savings and Board confidence Consumer Health could deliver “superior organic sales growth” of between four and six per cent in the medium term. This was despite valuations of about GBP50 billion by Goldman Sachs and Barclays analysts, and a lower GBP45 billion valuation by Jeffries Group.

There are no current talks between Unilever and either Pfizer or GSK, and the Unilever statement reads: “There can be no certainty that any agreement will be reached.” Under CEO Alan Jope, Unilever has focused its investments and marketing on brands which “communicate a strong environmental or social purpose” by streamlining its holdings in items like beauty products and tea. Jope previously said Unilever would concentrate on smaller takeovers in industries like luxury beauty and wellness.

However, Russ Mould, investment director at AJ Bell, told the BBC this would be a “high risk deal” at a time investors are cautious about GSK’s performance, but also a time of rising inflation he says encourages “consumer goods with loyal customers”. Mould added despite strong cashflow, Unilever had recently missed targets on sales and profit margins, putting pressure on the CEO.

Pressure by activist shareholders Elliott Management Corporation and Bluebell Capital Partners have also mounted against GSK CEO Emma Walmsley over the unit’s failure to develop a Covid-19 vaccine and Walmsley’s own lack of scientific experience. GSK has been involved in the ongoing development of a Covid-19 vaccine with French biopharmaceutical company Sanofi, and announced preliminary results from Phase 3 trials last month.

In 2018, Unilever bought several consumer nutritional products from GSK, including its flagship product Horlicks, and merged its Indian subsidiary, Hindustan Unilever, with GSK Consumer Healthcare India.

Thursday, January 22, 2009

Netizens have discovered the photograph that was used to create the iconic Barack Obama “HOPE” poster, which became a national symbol during his 2008 presidential campaign in the United States.

Los Angeles, California street artist Shepard Fairey’s poster design is an almost exact match to an Associated Press photo from October 2006 or earlier. Prior reports beginning on January 14, 2009 claimed that the poster was based on a different photo, a shot by Reuters photographer Jim Young from January 2007. However, on January 20, 2009 Flickr user stevesimula and blog commenters identified the Associated Press photo that appears to be a much closer match.

Fairey had revealed that he found the photographic basis for his four-color screen-printed design using Google Image Search, but could not or would not identify which photo he used. News broke of a supposed source only days ago. According to an earlier attempted analysis by Michael Cramer, it was a photo from TIME magazine which was reversed and stretched slightly. That photo was credited to “Jonathan Daniel” of Getty Images, but this turned out to be a misattribution. Reporter James Danziger of The Daily Beast tracked down the actual photographer for the TIME shot, Jim Young, and in his words “solved the biggest photographic mystery of the 2008 election”. Reuters also celebrated their photo as the basis for such a phenomenon as Fairey’s poster, and a print of the photo was sold to the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston. But it took only a few days for internet sleuths to show that, while similar, the Jim Young photo was not the one Fairey used.

The most convincing evidence that a different photo is indeed the one comes from Flickr: stevesimula produced a graphic comparing the two purported sources. The side lighting in the alternative photo creates highlight and shadow areas closely matching those Fairey used in his high-contrast stencil-like image, and the overlaid images line up precisely from Obama’s eyes to the shadow on his collar to his tie. Jim Young’s photo would have required manipulation to simply match the profile of Fairey’s design, even without considering details like the highlights and shadows.

The actual photo came from the Associated Press, as Wikimedians discovered using the “reverse image search engine” TinEye.com. That tip led photographer Tom Gralish of The Philadelphia Inquirer to the original photo through a Google image search for both “Obama” and “associated press”. The original contained IPTC metadata identifying the creator as Mannie Garcia, which Gralish quickly confirmed. The shot came from an April 2006 event where George Clooney, not then-Senator Obama, was the main attraction: Clooney was addressing the National Press Club about his trip to Darfur.

Fairey’s appropriation raises questions of intellectual property, as apparently no attempt was made to secure reproduction rights from the Associated Press. Sales of the image (on posters, clothing, and other paraphernalia) were used to fund the production of more posters in support of the Obama campaign, and raised Fairey’s public image considerably. A large hand-finished collage version was recently acquired by the Smithsonian Institution’s National Portrait Gallery. The purchase price is not known.

Friday, June 24, 2005

In a major decision, the Supreme Court of the United States has expanded the right of government to seize private property for public good by allowing the city of New London, Connecticut to invoke eminent domain and seize homeowners’ property for economic development reasons.

In a closely-divided decision, 5–4, the court determined that the city’s economic development plan constituted a “public use”, and therefore qualified under the U.S. Constitution’s fifth amendment’s Eminent Domain clause.

Justice John Paul Stevens wrote the majority decision, and was joined by Justices David H. Souter, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen G. Breyer and Anthony Kennedy. “Promoting economic development is a traditional and long accepted function of government,” Stevens wrote, and justified the decision further by saying municipal authorities are better positioned to make decisions regarding a community’s best interests than judges.

Writing the dissenting opinion, Justice Sandra Day O’Connor rejected the economic justification as a public use, pointing out that wealthy individuals are more capable of defending themselves and so are less at risk. But the greatest issue was the likelihood of abuse of eminent domain:

“The specter of condemnation hangs over all property. Nothing is to prevent the state from replacing any Motel 6 with a Ritz-Carlton, any home with a shopping mall or any farm with a factory.” A separate dissent was also included written by Justice Clarence Thomas.

Tuesday, March 14, 2006

The winter of 2005/2006 has been the warmest winter in Canada since the beginning of the nationwide weather record in 1948, with average nationwide temperatures 3.9°C above the long-term average. Statistically, such a strong deviation from the average is expected to be observed only once in 100 years.

While most of the country was experiencing temperatures of at least 2°C above normal, in most of Alberta, Saskatchewan and the Northwest Territories the temperatures were 6°C above normal, with some regions averaging up to 8°C above normal.

For this statistic the months from December through February were counted as winter.

Lack of ice in eastern Canada will probably affect the annual harp seal hunt, which typically starts around March 15. In February, so little ice had formed that Environment Canada reported that such poor ice conditions had never been seen before in recorded history. The last time conditions approached what we saw in February 2006 was in 1969. The year 1981 was the third lowest ice year in recorded history.

In 1981, a number of harp seal mothers, who normally whelp only on ice, went to the shores of Prince Edward Island and Nova Scotia and gave birth on land. That year, due to the lack of ice, hundreds of thousands of seal pups drowned. The seals who were born on land faced both natural dangers such as death by exposure, and the danger of death at the hands of thousands of sealers, both licensed and unlicensed. These sealers took this rare “opportunity” to walk right up to a baby seal and kill it. Some of these seals were also attacked by domestic dogs.

Thursday, October 22, 2020

2020 Melbourne Lord Mayor candidate Wayne Tseng answered some questions about his campaign for the upcoming election from Wikinews. The Lord Mayor election in the Australian city is scheduled to take place this week.

Tseng runs a firm called eTranslate, which helps software developers to make the software available to the users. In the candidate’s questionnaire, Tseng said eTranslate had led to him working with all three tiers of the government. He previously belonged to the Australian Liberal Party, but has left since then, to run for mayorship as an independent candidate.

Tseng is of Chinese descent, having moved to Australia with his parents from Vietnam. Graduated in Brisbane, Tseng received his PhD in Melbourne and has been living in the city, he told Wikinews. Tseng also formed Chinese Precinct Chamber of Commerce, an organisation responsible for many “community bond building initiatives”, the Lord Mayor candidate told Wikinews.

Tseng discussed his plans for leading Melbourne, recovering from COVID-19, and “Democracy 2.0” to ensure concerns of minorities in the city were also heard. Tseng also focused on the importance of the multi-culture aspect and talked about making Melbourne the capital of the aboriginals. Tseng also explained why he thinks Melbourne is poised to be a world city by 2030.

Tseng’s deputy Lord Mayor candidate Gricol Yang is a Commercial Banker and works for ANZ Banking Group.

Currently, Sally Capp is the Lord Mayor of Melbourne, the Victorian capital. Capp was elected as an interim Lord Mayor in mid-2018 after the former Lord Mayor Robert Doyle resigned from his position after sexual assault allegations. Doyle served as the Lord Mayor of Melbourne for almost a decade since 2008.

Monday, February 18, 2008

The website WikiLeaks.org has been taken off line in many parts of the world. Wikileaks is a website dedicated to leaking documents that are “anonymous, untraceable, uncensorable.”

Several factors have taken the site off line including DDoS attacks, which was followed by a fire which took out the main servers hosting the site in Sweden, and a restraining order on the domain name ‘WikiLeaks.org’ issued in the United States.

According to the website HongPong.com, Wikileaks experienced “a 500Mbps distributed denial of service attack” before the fire, but it is not known if the DDoS attack is connected to it.

After the attack, a fire was reported in the Uninterruptible Power Supply of the servers which host the site.

The third and final factor taking the site off line is a permanent injunction granted in the California Northern District Court in San Francisco, California to Bank Julius Baer, a Swiss Bank, which has caused the domain to be taken off line in the U.S.. Wikileaks previously published hundreds of documents obtained from a whistleblower of the Swiss Bank, “purportedly showing offshore tax evasion and money laundering by extremely wealthy and in some cases, politically sensitive, clients from the US, Europe, China and Peru.”

According to a Wikileaks press release received by e-mail, the injunction issued by the court states, “Dynadot [Wikileaks host] shall immediately clear and remove all DNS hosting records for the wikileaks.org domain name and prevent the domain name from resolving to the wikileaks.org website or any other website or server other than a blank park page, until further order of this Court.”

“The order was entirely written by Cayman Island’s Bank Julius Baer lawyers and was accepted by judge White without amendment, or representations by Wikileaks or amicus. The case is over several Wikileaks articles, public commentary and documents dating prior to 2003. The documents allegedly reveal secret Julius Baer trust structures used for asset hiding, money laundering and tax evasion.The bank alleges the documents were disclosed to Wikileaks by offshore banking whistleblower and former Vice President of the Cayman Island’s operation, Rudolf Elmer. Unable to lawfully attack Wikileaks servers which are based in several countries, the order was served on Wikileaks’s California registrar Dynadot (“the power company”). The order also enjoins every person who has heard about the order from even linking to the documents,” said Wikileaks in the release.

Despite the injunction, Wikileaks states that they will “keep on publishing, in-fact, given the level of suppression involved in this case, Wikileaks will step up publication of documents pertaining to illegal or unethical banking practices.”

Despite the injunction, the site can still be accessed at http://88.80.13.160/wiki/Wikileaks.