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By Kyle Stock
Bloomberg Businessweek
April 16, 2018
LAGARDE:JACOBIA DAHM/BLOOMBERG. PICASSO:©2018 ESTATE OF PABLO PICASSO/ARTISTS RIGHTS SOCIETY (ARS), NEW YORK. DIESS:KRISZTIAN
BOCSI/BLOOMBERG. ALGERIA:RYAD KRAMDI/GETTY IMAGES.DATA:EVERCORE ISI, AUSTRALIA’S DEPARTMENT OF INDUSTRY, INNOVATION,AND SCIENCE
Asia
Africa
○ Swiss drugmaker
Novartis said it would
purchase AveXis for
$8.7b
The Illinois-based company,
which specializes in
gene therapy, developed
a treatment for spinal
muscular atrophy, a disease
that afects 1 in 6,000 to
10,000 children.
○ Volkswagen decided
to shake up its C-suite,
ousting CEO Matthias
Müller and replacing him
with Herbert
Diess (left), who
built his career at
BMW. Volkswagen is still
embroiled in a criminal
investigation into its
diesel-emissions-cheating
scandal.
○ Camp Mukjar, Darfur’s
last refugee camp, closed
after being in operation
for almost 11 years.
Since December, more
than 4,000 residents
have returned to their
native Chad.
○ Egypt’s Madinet
Nasr Housing is
in talks to take
over developer
Sodic.
The combined company would have
about $2 billion in assets in and around
Cairo. Shares of both companies rose
on the news.
○“History show
us that import
restrictions hurt
everyone,
especially the
poorer consumers.”
Christine Lagarde, head of the International Monetary Fund, warned
governments to shun protectionism in a speech in Hong Kong.
○ The U.S., the
U.K., and France
weighed their
response to
Bashar al-Assad’s
alleged chemical
attack in Syria.
The Organization for the Prohibition of
Chemical Weapons, an international
watchdog, prepared to send fact-
finders to the country, as Russia vetoed
a United Nations resolution to create
a mechanism to examine the attacks,
which killed at least 42 people.
○Ant Financial Services, the
fintech business carved out
of Alibaba, prepared to raise
$10b
in a private funding round,
Bloomberg News reported.
The deal may value Ant at
$150 billion, more than any
other startup.
○ Airbus will reconfigure
its A330 widebodied jet to
install napping pods in the
cargo bay, the company
said. As Airbus tries to fend
of smaller rivals, it’s angling
to hang on to orders for
ultralong routes.
○A trade war between the U.S. and China couldhave
unintendedconsequences for other nations.
10
$3.9b
3.1
2.0
0.6
0.3
BMW
Daimler
Tesla
Ford
Fiat Chrysler
Japan
8%
South Korea
6%
Other
3%
China
83%
②The 25 percent U.S. duty on steel
from China and other countries will
hurt Australian mining companies
such as BHP Billiton, whose iron ore
business depends on China’s steel
mills. Those companies stand to lose if
a trade war depresses steel demand.
Destinations for Australian iron ore
exports in 2016 and 2017
①China has threatened to levy an
additional 25 percent tarif on U.S.-
produced cars. That would hurt neither
GM nor Ford—they have joint-venture
factories in China—but it will ding the
German companies that produce most
American-made cars sent to China.
Estimated 2018 revenue from cars
built in the U.S. and sent to China
○ On April 11 an Algerian military plane
crashed shortly after takeof, killing
257 people. It was the world’s worst
aviation disaster in almost four years.