TheChek News Flow

Misdrilled holes on Spirit AeroSystems fuselages will require work on 50 jets and could delay deliveries

Boeing BA -1.31%decrease; red down pointing triangle is reworking 50 undelivered 737 MAX jets after a supplier’s employee recently found misdrilled holes on some fuselages, a new production snafu for the aircraft manufacturer.

Spirit AeroSystems, which has been at the center of quality issues affecting 737s, supplied the fuselages and it was one of its employees that flagged the issue. Shares of Spirit fell in Monday trading. It reports quarterly results Tuesday.

Boeing said that the issue could delay some deliveries in the near term and that existing 737s can keep flying.

“This is the only course of action given our commitment to deliver perfect airplanes every time,” Boeing’s commercial chief Stan Deal said in a memo to staff on Sunday.

Boeing said it is finalizing instructions for the rework and expects to know how long it will take in coming days.

Deal said the employee flagged to his manager two holes that may not have been drilled exactly to the jet maker’s requirements. Delays will allow the company to inspect and, if necessary, fix any problems, he said.

A Spirit spokesman said the company notified Boeing of the issue last week and determined there is no flight-safety issue. He said Spirit is doing an engineering analysis but will continue delivering fuselages that incorporate added inspections and known repairs. Last year, misdrilled holes by Spirit on the aft bulkhead of some MAX jets led to production delays.

Variances such as the one flagged by Spirit aren’t unheard of. By taking a harder look at its production processes, Boeing might turn up more flaws.

Boeing is facing additional regulatory scrutiny after the Alaska Airlines door plug blowout last month. That incident, which also involved a Spirit fuselage, followed a string of issues involving the supplier, none of which led to in-flight incidents.

In the case of the blowout, the jet maker and industry officials increasingly believe Boeing employees failed to put back bolts needed to secure the door plug during production.

Deal also said Boeing has recently instructed a major supplier to hold shipments until all parts meet requirements, a move he said would lead to production delays. People familiar with the matter said that supplier was Spirit.

Boeing executives have pledged to review manufacturing practices and root out defects. The company last week said it wouldn’t set financial targets for the year as it focuses on improving quality. Investors and airline customers, which already are short on planes, worry that heightened scrutiny and Boeing’s efforts to improve its processes could slow deliveries.

Francesco Giorgi secretly recorded police officer complaining about ‘politically appointed’ judges and prosecutors

One of the main suspects in the corruption probe surrounding the European parliament and alleged interference from countries including Morocco and Qatar has filed fresh complaints on the conduct of Belgian investigators, asking for the entire case to be thrown out.

The complaint by Francesco Giorgi includes a secret recording of a conversation with a senior police officer involved in the case, who paid him a visit at home last year and complained about prosecutors and judges in Belgium serving a political agenda. The main suspects in the so-called Qatargate case last year had already requested an inquiry into the Belgian probe, which has delayed the case going to trial.

Giorgi’s lawyers on Monday submitted the 18-minute recording to the federal prosecutor’s office calling into question “the regularity” of the investigation, according to a copy of the letter accompanying the files seen by the Financial Times. 

Lawyer Pierre Monville said he was sharing the recording with all the other parties involved in the case “so everyone could draw their own conclusions”, according to the letter.

Chief police inspector Ceferino Alvarez-Rodriguez stopped by Giorgi’s apartment on May 3 2023 to return a phone that had previously been seized by the police. The conversation was recorded by Giorgi without the police investigator’s knowledge.

Giorgi had been released from jail three months earlier and was required to wear an electronic bracelet, after being arrested in December 2022 when police found hundreds of thousands of euros in cash at his and his partner’s home.

The Italian national had been a longtime parliamentary assistant to the alleged kingpin of the scheme, former MEP Pier Antonio Panzeri, who was also arrested in December, with police seizing a total of €1.5mn in cash. Panzeri struck a plea deal with Belgian investigators last year, following the arrest of his wife and daughter. He admitted receiving money from foreign governments to influence EU legislation in return for a reduced sentence — a deal that has yet to be approved by a Belgian court.

According to the recording cited in the legal letter and listened to by the FT, Alvarez-Rodriguez claims that Belgian authorities believed that Panzeri was lying at the time he struck his plea deal.

“We know that [Panzeri is lying] and we will do what is necessary so that the [plea bargain] will not pass,” Alvarez-Rodriguez says. “If we prove he is lying . . . he is over.”

The recording shows Giorgi was furious because investigators had searched his apartment after his release from jail and seized notes he had written for his legal defence.  

In response to Giorgi calling Belgian investigative methods “shocking” and saying he does not trust the judiciary, Alvarez-Rodriguez says: “You must be crazy to trust the judiciary today, whatever country, whatever judiciary.”

“I will trust the judiciary the day judges and prosecutors are not politically appointed, OK? I have no trust in the judiciary because its strings are pulled by politicians.”

Judges and prosecutors in Belgium are selected by an independent judiciary council and then appointed by the justice minister.

The investigative judge on the case, who was approving arrest warrants and overseeing the probe, Michel Claise, stepped aside in June 2023 after it was revealed that his son was in business with the son of another MEP linked to Panzeri.

At the time, the prosecutor’s office said Claise was stepping down “as a matter of caution and in order to allow justice to continue its work calmly and to maintain the necessary separation between private and family life and professional responsibilities”.

The prosecutor’s office on Monday said it took note of the remarks attributed to a police officer and recorded without his knowledge. It said that its investigative work focuses precisely on “verifying the veracity of statements” made by the person who struck a plea deal and whether all the legal requirements were met for that agreement to be approved.

“A procedure is currently under way in front of an independent court to scrutinise the legality of several investigative actions,” the office added.

The federal police declined to comment.

Debate over funding of ‘pure science’ ventures heats up with ambitious proposal for 91km supercollider

Scientists want to push ahead with a €16bn expansion of the world’s biggest particle accelerator to probe the universe’s secrets even more deeply, defying critics who say the money would be better spent on more practical areas of research.

Executives at Cern near Geneva expect next year to complete a feasibility study on construction of the so-called Future Circular Collider (FCC) — a 91km ring with more than three times the circumference of the existing Large Hadron Collider.

The debate over the proposed expansion highlights wider arguments over how to allocate precious funding for “pure science” ventures at a time of rapid technological advances and growing global threats such as pandemics and climate change.

The new supercollider would not only probe fundamental physics, said Fabiola Gianotti, Cern’s director-general, but also serve to boost practical developments in fields including cryogenics, superconducting magnets and batteries.

“The FCC will not only be a wonderful instrument to improve our understanding of fundamental laws of physics and of nature,” she said at a briefing on Monday. “It will also be a driver of innovation.”

The expansion project would seek co-operation with — and potentially additional funding from — countries beyond Cern’s 23-nation membership, which comprises 18 EU states, Israel, Norway, Serbia, Switzerland and the UK, Gianotti said. The Large Hadron Collider has benefited greatly from the contribution of countries such as the US and Japan, she added.

“Cern has a history of collaboration with non-member states and the FCC will be even more . . . an international if not a global project,” she said.

An interim report on the FCC proposal was submitted to Cern’s governing council, which met last week. The representatives of the body did not identify “any technological or scientific show-stoppers” that would hinder the proposed expansion, said Eliezer Rabinovici, the council’s president.

No final decisions have been made on whether to go ahead with the project or on how funding would be mobilised from members and non-members, Cern executives said.

The FCC plan has intensified the debate over the wisdom of large investments in big-ticket science ventures versus more targeted projects with clear practical benefits.

Switzerland-based Cern has been striving for a sequel to its Nobel Prize winning 2012 discovery of the Higgs boson, the so-called “god particle” that completed the standard model used to explain particle physics.

Sabine Hossenfelder, a leading German theoretical physicist, has said the proposed Cern expansion project will be more expensive but have less discovery potential than its predecessors, meaning it is not a good investment.

The Large Hadron Collider accelerates protons normally found at the heart of atoms almost to the speed of light and smashes them together to produce new particles. Some of these incredibly shortlived species of matter are the same as those that existed in the early universe, so observing their decay offers a rare window into cosmic time.

The Large Hadron Collider was restarted in 2022 after a three-year shutdown to improve the power and precision of its investigations into whether there is a still deeper “new physics” beyond the standard model.

Research targets including explaining the nature of “dark matter”, which is more regarded as being much more abundant in the universe than conventional matter yet is undetectable to existing scientific instruments.

Cern, the European Organization for Nuclear Research, was the birthplace of the internet more than 30 years ago, showing how “pure science” projects can yield unexpected developments that have a transformative real-world impact.

“Cern has significantly advanced our understanding of the universe, while seeding innovations with huge economic impact — not least the world wide web,” said Louis Barson, director of science, innovation and skills at the UK’s Institute of Physics.

San Francisco-based firm is working with Kirkland & Ellis and FTI Consulting to seek options to address $1.5 billion of debt

Invitae, a medical genetics company that received backing from SoftBank Group at the height of the pandemic has hired restructuring advisers and is preparing to file for bankruptcy within weeks, according to people familiar with the matter.

The company is working with FTI Consulting and law firm Kirkland & Ellis to explore strategic options, including bankruptcy, to address $1.5 billion in debt on its balance sheet, the people said.

San Francisco-based Invitae, which has been on an acquisition spree in recent years, has started to shed some assets and cut costs, the company has said.

Invitae’s decline parallels the collapse in value of its more popular industry peer 23andMe, a genetic testing company targeting consumers, that has seen its market cap shrink from $6 billion in 2021 to nearly zero.

Invitae’s shares have tumbled to under $1 per share since 2020 when its stock reached over $50 and it had a market cap of over $7 billion. The company’s shares traded at 39 cents Monday, following an 82% loss in value in the past 12 months.

Invitae raised $1.2 billion in convertible debt from SoftBank in 2021, planning to use the proceeds primarily to acquire assets, the company has said. SoftBank remains an investor in the company, according to the people.

Invitae declined to comment on Monday. SoftBank didn’t respond to a request for comment.

In January, Invitae said it sold its reproductive health business for $52.5 million, and in December it sold the Ciitizen patient data business for an undisclosed sum. The company had acquired Ciitizen in 2021 for $325 million in cash and shares.

The company, which hasn’t turned a profit since its inception in 2013, estimates that it burned over $220 million in cash last year, according to earnings reports. Invitae reported $267 million in cash as of the end of September.

The roughly 6,300-square-foot unit at Aman New York was originally priced above $70 million

A full-floor apartment at Aman New York, a luxury condominium and hotel on Fifth Avenue in Manhattan, has closed for $61.58 million.

The buyer, who is from Asia, used a limited liability company to purchase the unit on the 24th floor of the building, property records show. The unit spans about 6,300 square feet, and was priced at more than $70 million in the building’s offering plan. It went into contract about six years ago, records show.

Sales at the project launched in 2018. That year, with construction recently under way, an Asian buyer agreed to pay roughly $180 million for the top penthouse, a five-level residence spanning about 12,500 square feet. Closings began in 2022, when the conversion was completed. A residence on the 20th floor closed for about $75.8 million in 2022, but the top penthouse hasn’t yet closed.

Aman currently operates 35 hotels and residences worldwide, according to its website.

Manhattan’s luxury market, which slowed last year, has been picking up in recent weeks. A townhouse in Greenwich Village recently sold in an off-market deal for $72.5 million.

Novo Nordisk’s controlling shareholder buys Catalent for $16.5 billion, including debt

Novo Nordisk’s owner wants to solve the Danish company’s weight-loss-drug production woes by buying up one of the world’s biggest contract manufacturing firms.

Novo Holdings, which owns a controlling stake in Wegovy maker Novo Nordisk NOVO.B 3.63%increase; green up pointing triangle, agreed to buy Somerset, N.J.-based Catalent CTLT 9.37%increase; green up pointing triangle for $16.5 billion, including debt. In turn, Novo Holdings will flip three of the most critical Catalent plants to Novo Nordisk for $11 billion, which will help the drugmaker boost production of its hot-selling diabetes and obesity medications.

Demand has been off the charts for Novo Nordisk’s anti-obesity drug Wegovy and its cousin diabetes drug Ozempic, along with similar drugs from rival Eli Lilly LLY 6.44%increase; green up pointing triangle. The companies haven’t been able to keep up despite continuing efforts to boost output.

The deal for Catalent, which provides outsourced manufacturing for many top drug companies, suggests the unusual lengths that Novo is willing to take to shore up its production and fill spiraling prescriptions that are expected to generate tens of billions of dollars in yearly sales. It is also a fresh sign of just how much the weight-loss drug market is booming.

“Supply is so critical here,” Kasim Kutay, chief executive of Novo Holdings, said. “There are benefits to owning something so critical to your growth and profitability and to have full determination on how you want to scale.”

Not every day does a pharmaceutical company seek to solve its manufacturing shortfalls with an outright purchase of a contract manufacturer. In fact, many pharmaceutical companies have turned to contract manufacturers in recent years, rather than build more of their own plants, to help control their costs and improve margins.

Yet the runaway success of Ozempic and Wegovy—and their Lilly competitors—have put a premium on their manufacture. It has also boosted the two stocks, turning Novo Nordisk into Europe’s most valuable company, surpassing $500 billion last week, and giving its holding company the wherewithal to buy Catalent.

The acquisition will give Novo direct control of plants that could ease some of the production bottlenecks.

The weight-loss drugs, and their diabetes cousins, have emerged as one of the hottest segments of the pharmaceutical industry. Novo’s weekly injections and similar drugs from Lilly are in high demand because they can help people with obesity shed much more weight than older medicines, and to keep it off.

Average weekly U.S. prescriptions for Wegovy this year are up 148% from a year earlier, while Ozempic is up 43%, according to JPMorgan Chase. Prescriptions for these and other drugs in the category, known as GLP-1’s, are averaging more than one million a week.

Many people have turned to a gray market of custom-made, or compounded, medicines because they can’t get supplies from their local pharmacy. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has warned that it can’t verify the safety of these compounded versions.

Novo Nordisk and Lilly are spending billions of dollars to expand existing factories, build new ones and form external partnerships in a bid to boost output. In recent months, Novo Nordisk has outlined plans to invest more than $6 billion to increase capacity.

Last month, the company began gradually increasing supplies of lower-dose strengths that are typically given to new patients, having reduced supply in the U.S. since May to safeguard access for current patients.

The Catalent deal is an outgrowth of an unusual and complicated ownership structure for Novo Nordisk. A nonprofit foundation, the Novo Nordisk Foundation, has voting control of the drugmaker’s shares through its investment arm, Novo Holdings.

The dividends flowing back to Novo Holdings and the foundation—which is now among the world’s largest because of Novo Nordisk’s stock—have enabled more charitable grants, investments and acquisitions in recent years. One area of focus for Novo Holdings’ investments has been companies that provide services to the pharmaceutical industry, Kutay said.

“The acquisition complements the significant investments we are already doing in active pharmaceutical ingredients facilities, and the sites will provide strategic flexibility to our existing supply network,” said Novo Nordisk CEO Lars Fruergaard Jørgensen.

Catalent is one of the largest providers of outsourced manufacturing for the pharmaceutical industry, with more than 50 global sites and $4.3 billion in sales last year. It played a big role in manufacturing Covid-19 vaccines during the pandemic.

Yet its performance had suffered recently. In 2021, Catalent temporarily stopped deliveries and manufacturing at its Belgium plant after FDA inspections found faulty air filters and damaged equipment, contributing to early shortages of Wegovy.

The three sites that will be sold to Novo Nordisk—in Italy, Brussels and Bloomington, Ind.—together employ 3,000 people and specialize in sterile filling of medicines into syringes and injection devices. They have existing manufacturing collaborations with Novo Nordisk.

Novo Holdings will pay $63.50 a share in cash for Catalent, a premium of 16.5% to Catalent’s closing price on Friday and a 47.5% premium to the 60-day volume-weighted average price as of Friday.

The Novo Holdings purchase of Catalent is projected to close toward the end of 2024, after which the three Catalent sites would be sold to Novo Nordisk. Novo Nordisk expects the three Catalent sites to help increase the company’s filling capacity starting in 2026.

After the closing of the merger, Catalent shares will no longer trade on the New York Stock Exchange, and it will become a private company.

Catalent shares rose 10% to $59.99 in recent trading. Novo Nordisk’s American depositary receipts rose 3% to $117.12.

Les cofondateurs d’AgriLife Studio ont annoncé ce lundi 5 février la levée de 25 millions d’euros auprès d’investisseurs comme Bpifrance et Crédit Mutuel, pour financer le développement d’une quinzaine de start-up. Avec un concept : le « start-up studio », qui vise à accompagner le développement des jeunes pousses dans la durée.

Des millions pour nos champs. Le start-up studio AgriLife Studio a annoncé ce lundi avoir levé 25 millions d’euros pour financer la création d’une quinzaine d’entreprises technologiques en lien avec l’agriculture (ou « agritech »). Une première pour ce studio naissant qui implique Bpifrance, la banque publique d’investissement, via le fonds French Tech Accélération II de France 2030, mais aussi Crédit Mutuel Arkéa et Crédit Mutuel Alliance Fédérale, via le Fonds révolution environnementale et solidaire. Un investissement « plutôt équilibré entre les trois investisseurs » aux dires de Pierre Gillet, directeur d’investissement French Tech chez Bpifrance.

Start-up studio, kézako ?

Contrairement à un incubateur, un start-up studio a pour mission de créer des entreprises. Il identifie des projets, recrute les entrepreneurs puis se charge d’accompagner et de financer le développement de l’entreprise jusqu’à ouverture de ses capitaux. L’argent apporté par les investisseurs sert ainsi à financer les start-up, ainsi qu’à payer les salaires du studio ; ce dernier se rémunère ultérieurement, lors de la vente de parts des entreprises accompagnées ou d’un éventuel versement de dividendes.

Dans le cas présent, AgriLife Studio prévoit de lancer une quinzaine d’entreprises, dont une dizaine pourrait bénéficier de financements lors de leurs premiers tours de table - ce qui inclut les financements d’amorçage (« pre-seed »), de développement (« seed »), puis une partie des tours de table servant à rendre le business model rentable et à étendre l’activité. Pour ce faire, une nouvelle levée de fonds auprès d’autres partenaires devrait intervenir dans les semestres à venir et porter le budget du studio à 50 millions d’euros.

LIRE AUSSIAgriculture : se passer du glyphosate, est-ce vraiment possible ?

Pour les investisseurs comme pour les start-up, l’avantage du modèle d’AgriLife Studio est double. D’une part, les entreprises, accompagnées plus longtemps, sont théoriquement plus résistantes et croissent plus vite. D’autre part, la spécialisation du studio permet un meilleur accompagnement, mais également un meilleur recrutement. « Le principe de ce start-up studio, c’est d’être monosectoriel : on va donc pouvoir attirer les meilleurs talents », projette Priscilla Rozé-Pagès.

Des projets « à impact »

Les projets retenus, eux, sont identifiés en partenariat avec les partenaires du studio - ici, des grandes écoles comme AgroParisTech, des instituts de recherche comme l’Inrae (Institut national de recherche pour l’agriculture, l’alimentation et l’environnement), des laboratoires universitaires, des communautés d’entrepreneurs ou des agriculteurs, proches des réalités et des problématiques du terrain. « Notre démarche de sélection consiste à identifier des enjeux majeurs dans l’agriculture, puis à essayer de trouver des solutions », résume Antoine Coutant.

Robots, objets connectés… ces nouvelles technologies qui font bouger l’agriculture

Parmi les projets développés, des projets biotechnologiques, coûteux en moyens et en temps, et des projets purement digitaux, basés sur des solutions logicielles. Avec, à chaque fois, un objectif : avoir un impact positif sur l’environnement, la biodiversité ou encore le climat - indicateurs de performance à l’appui. « On a la chance d’avoir trois actionnaires alignés avec nous sur cette vision temps long et impact. Pour eux, c’est l’impact d’abord, avant la rentabilité ! », se réjouit Priscilla Rozé-Pagès.

Si les projets précis n’ont pas encore été dévoilés, les questions des substituts aux pesticides, de la qualité de l’eau ou encore de la sécurité au travail des agriculteurs devraient être abordées par certaines entreprises du studio. De quoi esquisser, au moins en partie, l’agriculture de demain.

Sponsors under pressure from investors to return cash but are finding it harder to offload companies

US private equity firms are rushing to take advantage of lower borrowing costs by loading debt on to their portfolio companies and then using the cash to pay dividends to themselves and their investors.

Corporate borrowers sold $8.1bn worth of junk-rated US loans to fund payments to shareholders in January, more than six times December’s total and the highest monthly figure in more than two years. The vast majority were issued by companies backed by private equity firms, according to data from PitchBook LCD.

With weak deal volumes and sluggish demand for initial public offerings making it harder to offload existing investments, private equity firms are turning to these so-called dividend recapitalisations as a way of pacifying investors eager for a return on their capital.

“Credit markets are hot right now,” said a senior private equity executive. “It is a great opportunity to issue or refinance debt at a lower cost of capital,” the person added, referring to dividend recaps.

The opportunity provided by the sharp drop in borrowing costs in recent months has come at a welcome time for private equity firms.

Many are facing pressure from their own investors to return some cash, and are well aware that doing so is key if they want to attract investors into new funds they launch in future.

“I think there’s a lot of pent-up demand by sponsors to have market access,” said Kevin Loome, US high-yield portfolio manager at T Rowe Price. “Sponsors are under a lot of pressure to return capital to investors.”

John McClain, a portfolio manager at Brandywine Global Investment Management, said that “anecdotally . . . [investors] in private equity and in private credit, they’re waiting to get distributions before they’re thinking about committing to the next round.”

Dividend recaps surged in popularity during the early stages of the coronavirus pandemic after the US Federal Reserve cut interest rates to near-zero, but fell out of favour in 2022 and early 2023 as borrowing costs rose.

Debtholders are often wary of large volumes of dividend recaps, as they typically burden companies with higher degrees of leverage and may backfire if a borrower’s growth expectations fall short or interest rates rise.

In the past month, companies that have done such deals include technology group IntraFi Network and chemicals distributor Univar Solutions — backed by private equity giants Warburg Pincus and Blackstone, and Apollo respectively.

Univar borrowed $450mn in new term loans to pay a dividend to its private equity owner Apollo, which had closed a more than $8bn takeover of the company six months earlier.

Warburg Pincus and Blackstone have borrowed about $800mn since December against InfraFi Network in order to pay themselves a large dividend. KKR-owned 1-800 Contacts last month borrowed $565mn in first lien debt to repay a higher-cost $315mn junior loan and fund a $250mn payout to itself.

Debt markets rallied strongly at the end of last year, after the US Federal Reserve signalled that it had finished its campaign of aggressive interest rate rises and was expecting to make three quarter-point cuts in 2024.

Private equity-backed companies have used that as an opportunity to refinance as a way of lowering their interest burdens. For instance, UKG, a large software company backed by investors including Hellman & Friedman and Blackstone, in January refinanced more than $7bn in term loans, cutting its interest rate, partially by increasing the use of first lien debt.

The sheer number of loans trading above par last month has also allowed more borrowers to negotiate with their investors to reduce the interest rates on their existing debt. So-called repricing volumes for US junk loans soared to $91.2bn in January, the highest monthly total in four years, though a considerably smaller share of junk loans was trading higher than face value by last week.

Market participants said repricing activity in relation to older loans had helped to fuel demand for new loan issuance. “We had this avalanche of repricings,” said Andrzej Skiba, head of US fixed income at BlueBay RBC GAM. “People were actually quite starved of new money loan paper . . . So that made investors more amenable to consider dividend distributions.”

The high volume of repricings and dividend recap loan issuance in recent weeks comes as bond sales by US investment-grade companies hit a record for January of about $180bn.

High-yield borrowers also issued more than $30bn in bonds, data from PitchBook LCD shows, while new junk loan issuance still hit more than $65bn, the highest monthly figure since September 2021.

“Yes, there’s been more supply in January, and February’s looking like it’s going to be a busy month as well,” said Skiba.