Sunday Update - UK Disarray, Brazilian Kisses

Greetings from London where the United Kingdom is in disarray. The two leading pharmaceutical companies here are fighting over an ovarian and other cancers drug, Zejula, licensed by discoverer Astra Zeneca to Glaxo. Now AZN says GSK is cheating by not paying all the royalties due. The drug is a blockbuster which blocks enzymes which repair DNA, helping kill cancer cells. The drug from GSK is called Zejula and the AZN one is called Lynparza and each managed to raise sales by 48% last year, Glaxo in (by pounds) 339 mn and AZN's (by pounds) 1.8 bn. Now AZN says GSK is not paying up the full royalties owing.

• We got lucky on Friday when Dow Jones wrote up SSE plc, SSEZY, the UK ute, after Elliott bought a stake in the green company tipped by our Harry Geisel, It rose 50p in UK trading but I don't know what happened in the USA.

Nio, the electric vehicle maker, on Saturday got a new $7 bn investment from the Canadian Public Sector Pension Investment Board. The share had fallen 3.39% Friday which tempted the buy. Here in London on the streets of Island Gardens there are electric recharging systems for cars from Siemens which can be plugged in while the car is parked. The users seems to be mostly cabs. NIO 

• Brazilian Cosan reported on its Q2 in Portuguese under IFRS Aug 13. It claimed an 89% rise in its cashflow (Earnings before interest, depreciation, and amortization) linked to its new structure, and a 32 times rise in its adjusted earnings. CSAN divested control of its gas stations in Brazil and Argentina to a jv with Shell, Raizen Energia, and the figures are not comparable to prior years. It is doing well also with its Moove line whose sales tripled, in this case giving Cosan 70% of the money. Margins in general were up as expenses fell. CZZ

Its main business, sugar refining, was hit by bad weather which cut volumes harvested by 6% and production of sugar by 4.6% but the costs were covered by higher prices for the sugar sold. Other factors also were different this year, like Argentina taxes and much higher corporate expenses above all for bank debt and fees. 

Cosan guided for lower sugar sales for the rest of the year at reais 1.25 to 1.45 bn, down from prior forecasts of Rs 1.5-1.7 bn, offset by higher Moove transport sales expected at Rs 530-550 mn up from Rs 400-480 mn projected earlier. 

The great thing about a Brazilian update is that CEO Luis Henrique Guimaraies sent me an "abraco" (kiss) with the results. SG&A was up 15.8% so I will kiss him back. At some point I will get the English version of this quarterly result.

Abracos to all, Vivian

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