TheChek News Flow

The Swiss fragrance and flavors supplier has upped its share in the pigment and powder specialist to 49 percent.

PARIS — Swiss fragrance and flavors supplier Symrise AG has raised its stake in Kobo Products Inc., a U.S.-based pigment and powder specialist for the beauty industry, to 49 percent.

Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed, but in a statement Symrise said the funds raised are expected to expand capacity and enhance Kobo’s supply chain.

“The transaction creates further opportunities for both companies in the fields of mineral UV filters and decorative cosmetics,” Symrise said. “Kobo customers will also benefit from expanded capacities and global supply chains. With this step, both partners have expressed their strong commitment to this partnership and the added value it will create for customers and consumers.”

The fragrance and flavors suppliers keep expanding their reach through acquisitions in the realms of well-being, cosmetics and naturality.

Symrise initially took a 25 percent stake in Kobo in 2021, in a bid to step up its growth in cosmetics ingredients. At the time, Symrise said it had agreed with Kobo on the future disposition of shares in the group’s capital and governance. Symrise also became a distribution partner with Kobo for inorganic UV filters. As part of the new deal, there has been another agreement signed concerning Kobo’s shares and governance.

“With its innovative product range, Kobo perfectly complements our own portfolio,” said Jörn Andreas, the executive board member responsible for scent and care at Symrise. “The corporate cultures of Kobo and Symrise also harmonize on all levels. For all these reasons, we feel very happy about this second investment and the expression of our confidence in Kobo that it makes.”

Comme pour les restaurants, la Clef Michelin distinguera chaque année des établissements remarquables. Le premier palmarès sera dévoilé au premier semestre 2024.

Près de cent ans après avoir lancé ses étoiles, le Guide Michelin crée la réplique pour les hôtels: la Clef Michelin. Comme dans la restauration, il entend créer l'événement chaque année, en révélant son palmarès d'hôtels à l'occasion d'une cérémonie. «Nous répondons à une demande, déclare Gwendal Poullennec, directeur international des Guides Michelin. L'utilisateur du Guide Michelin recherche une expérience réussie, quand il réserve une table ou un séjour. Nous travaillons depuis plusieurs années à lui offrir un service complet dans l'hôtellerie, de la recommandation d'adresses jusqu'à la possibilité de réserver sur notre site Internet».

Le premier palmarès de la Clef Michelin sera dévoilé au premier semestre 2024. Mais depuis plusieurs semaines déjà, le Guide propose sur son site Internet une sélection de plus de 5000 hôtels dans 120 pays. «Nous nous sommes appuyés sur la sélection de l'agence de voyages en ligne new-yorkaise Tablet Hotels, que nous avons rachetée en 2018», explique son dirigeant. Une infime partie de ces hôtels recevront une Clef Michelin. «Nos équipes sont actuellement sur le terrain pour dénicher ces pépites hôtelières partout dans le monde», prévient Gwendal Poullennec.

Dans un monde de l'hôtellerie, où les classifications et labels sont déjà nombreux, le Guide Michelin compter imposer sa nouvelle distinction, avec des conseils «avisés et vérifiés». «Le Guide Michelin s'est lancé pour combler un manque d'information sur les restaurants, rappelle son dirigeant. Le contexte a changé. Aujourd'hui, les voyageurs sont saturés d'informations et d'avis plus ou moins fiables». Dans ce contexte, l’indépendance qui fait partie de l’ADN du Guide Michelin, est un gage de confiance.

Quant aux classifications et labels d'hôtels, ils sont payants pour les professionnels. Leurs critères dépendent pour beaucoup de la qualité des infrastructures. L'attribution des étoiles dépend notamment de la surface des chambres et des parties communes, de la présence ou non d'un ascenseur... Des subtilités d’autant plus méconnues des voyageurs, qu’elles varient d’un pays à l’autre.

Inspecteur recrutés

La sélection des hôtels du Guide Michel aura une obsession: dénicher les bonnes adresses capables de faire vivre des expériences uniques aux voyageurs. En plus de briller par l'architecture, la singularité de leur établissement et le design intérieur, les lauréats de la Clef Michelin seront irréprochables par la qualité du service et le rapport qualité-prix. Ils doivent être de véritables destinations. «Vous ne retrouverez pas tous les 5 étoiles et les palaces, seulement les plus remarquables, confie Gwendal Poullennec. Il n'y aura pas de resorts, où l'on vit en vase clos. Pas d'hôtels standardisés non plus. Mais la gamme de prix sera large, de moins de cent euros à plusieurs milliers».

Comme dans la restauration, des «inspecteurs» ont été recrutés (leur nombre n'est pas communiqué), pour séjourner incognito dans les hôtels. «Les meilleurs établissements sont souvent récents ou rénovés. Ils sont souvent peu mis en avant sur les plateformes de réservation, constate Gwendal Poullenec. Nous voulons être les premiers à les repérer».

Appartenant depuis toujours au groupe Michelin, le Guide Michelin ne donne aucun chiffre. Ses revenus proviennent essentiellement de partenariats signés avec des grandes marques (montres Blancpain, alcools Rémy Martin, café Illy...) et des territoires, en France comme à l'étranger (Visit California, la région Centre-Val de Loire...). En lançant une distinction dans l'hôtellerie, s’y ajouteront les commissions perçues sur les réservations de chambres effectuées sur le site Internet du Guide. Des commissions comprises entre 10 et 15% du prix de la nuitée.

Group’s shaky finances fuel talk of a fundraising which management denials cannot completely dispel

Late trains irritate British commuters. Investors in Alstom too: the company’s Aventra rolling stock projects in the UK have been delayed. Poor execution means less cash flow for the indebted French train maker.

Nervous traders knocked Alstom’s share price 35 per cent on Thursday morning. The group’s shaky finances fuelled talk of a fundraising which management denials could not completely dispel.

Alstom has a signalling problem. Analysts tuning into an Alstom conference call on Wednesday evening were greeted by chief financial officer Bernard Delpit. Chief executive Henri Poupart-Lafarge did not attend. Delpit only arrived at Alstom three months ago.

He had to explain why consensus forecasts of free cash outflows are ballooning. The predicted figure has widened from €152mn to €1.15bn in the first half, according to data service Visible Alpha. Analysts have been scurrying to increase their net debt estimates too.

Alstom will report interim results in mid November. Hopes that UK projects providing 443 trains would soon deliver better cash flow and reduce debt have been dashed.

Poupart-Lafarge and Delpit have much to do. Alstom’s share price, even before Thursday’s collapse, had trailed the MSCI European industrials index by 30 per cent over two years. Over the past three years, Alstom’s operating cash outflows have summed to minus €426mn. Optimists will highlight a timing problem caused by elevated inventories and point to the group’s net liquidity position (including credit lines) of €3.5bn.

Sceptics will rightly question any dependence on UK infrastructure projects for future cash flows. Net debt to forward ebitda, on Barclays estimates, looks high at over 5 times, even if that should fall in the next year or so. As global bond yields arc ever higher, the bears drive the sentiment train.

If you want credibility, stick to your timetable and front up any apologies when you miss them. That applies to running a train making company, as well as a train service.

Regulators criticise ‘disappointing’ lack of action from lenders to strengthen risk management since 2021

flaws in risk management systems exposed by the Archegos hedge fund scandal.

In a letter sent to major lenders on Monday, the BoE said it had directed them to make improvements to their markets businesses in December 2021, months after the investment firm Archegos failed due to highly leveraged bets that went wrong.

The instruction followed a review by the central bank that found weaknesses in risk management processes had contributed to more than $10bn in collective losses resulting from the Archegos collapse.

It also comes as regulators across the world warn about the heightened risks to markets as economies continue to adjust to an era of raised interest rates.

“It is disappointing that the messages we communicated previously have not been fully addressed,” the BoE wrote.

It also pointed to the UK gilts crisis last year as evidence that “there is still some way to go in applying these lessons to fixed-income businesses”.

The BoE was forced to intervene with a £65bn bond-buying programme to halt plummeting UK gilt prices in September 2022, after the then-government’s “mini” Budget triggered a sell-off by highly leveraged pension fund vehicles, known as LDIs (liability driven investments).

The debacle led the central bank to expand a planned review of banks’ fixed-income businesses to look at the broader issues exposed by the LDI crisis.

Announcing the review’s findings, the BoE said it found a “number of shortcomings” in risk management of individual clients — known as counterparty risk — as well as failures around the “margining arrangements”, which determine how much clients owe at any given time.

It stressed that it expected companies to “extend enhanced credit due diligence principles, client disclosure standards, and counterparty risk management controls beyond those that have been introduced for hedge fund clients in equity financing”.

These should be expanded to “all client types in all secured financing and other relevant trading businesses”.

On the subject of counterparty risk, the BoE said many banks had made “insufficient attempts” to work out how concentrated their risks were to clients and collateral.

It added that some lenders had failed to establish “formal controls” to limit exposures to clients or types of assets and called for action in response.

“With the recent shifts in the global macro environment, firms should enhance the way they assess their trading and counterparty risks, incorporating new and broader stresses into their risk management processes,” the BoE wrote.

On margining, the BoE criticised lenders for “inadequate” monitoring of certain types of risk, alongside their failure to have clear policies on, for example, the discounts they apply to collateral pledged with the bank.

The letter was sent by BoE head of international supervision Nathanaël Benjamin and head of UK deposit takers David Bailey.

UK company insists offer from US group was highest it received

Abcam has defended the handling of its proposed $5.7bn takeover by Danaher, insisting that the UK life sciences company rejected inadequate bids and pushed the US group to increase its offer.

Alan Hirzel, chief executive of the Cambridge-based company, dismissed accusations by its co-founder Jonathan Milner, who plans to vote against the deal and wants to unseat the board and take over as CEO.

“This has been a robust process, a competitive process right to the end and the board has recommended the highest offer,” Hirzel told the Financial Times.

Milner, who had a 6.1 per cent stake in the company last month, has argued that the offer materially undervalues Abcam, saying Danaher’s forecasts for Abcam’s performance were substantially lower than its own guidance. He accused the board of not giving other buyers enough consideration.

But in a shareholder circular due to be published on Thursday, Abcam’s board said the $24-a-share offer was the “highest and best price” it had received after engaging with 30 potential counterparties, including 21 companies and 12 financial sponsors. It said the nearest competing offer had been $22.50, and that Danaher had raised its offer twice from an initial bid of $20.50.

Hirzel told the FT he had led a transformation of the company that had increased the share price more than fivefold since he took over in 2014. He said Danaher had not only offered the highest bid but would also allow Abcam to continue operating independently, while collaborating in areas such as diagnostics and bioprocessing.

He added that Danaher and the other bidders had all based their valuations on the company’s published forecasts, not lower estimates as Milner had suggested.

Abcam, which creates products for scientists to use in research such as custom antibodies, was founded in 1998 as a spinout from the University of Cambridge. Milner was chief executive until 2014, when he was replaced by Hirzel, and remained on the board until 2020. He argues that Abcam has been mismanaged since his departure and launched a campaign in May to overhaul the board.

The company said the $24-a-share offer was at a 39 per cent premium to the undisturbed share price on May 16, before Milner announced his intention to call an extraordinary general meeting, and a 48 per cent premium to the volume-weighted average price of $16.21 for the 30 trading days before May 16.

Milner has also questioned whether Abcam management prioritised its own bonuses over the best deal for shareholders. But the company said management pay had not changed because of the deal. It said the discussions between Abcam and Danaher about existing management incentive schemes had been negotiated after the offer price and other terms had been agreed.

Abcam last year dropped its Aim listing in favour of a sole listing on Nasdaq. But Milner believes it could also benefit from a UK listing and told the FT last month that he thought Abcam’s UK headquarters and jobs were in danger.

The company said on Thursday that Danaher was committed to Abcam’s current geographic presence, including its UK headquarters.

A global investigation into the Israeli Predator spyware firm has revealed documents showing the former prime minister was invited to pitch a deal to a German spy agency. Olmert admits working with Intellexa, recently sanctioned by the U.S., until recently

Former Israeli prime minister Ehud Olmert worked for the offensive cyber firm Intellexa and was supposed to participate in a sales pitch to a German intelligence agency on behalf of the company that was recently blacklisted by the U.S. Olmert confirmed that he consulted for Intellexa, but noted that his ties to the firm ended a few months ago.

The revelations are part of the "Predator Files" investigation, which is based on documents and evidence obtained by French magazine Mediapart and German Der Spiegel. 15 media outlets led by the EIC (European Investigative Collaborations) participated in its analysis. Shomrim, via journalist Daniel Dolev, was the Israeli partner in the project. AmnestyTech, Amnesty International's forensic laboratory, assisted in the analysis of the technical findings. The investigation also reveals how the spyware was sold to Egyptian intelligence, and was pitched across the world (see separate story).

Intellexa, an intelligence and cyber arms firm created by former Israelis, was at least until recently registered in Greece and has related entities in Ireland and North Macedonia. It serves as a one-stop-shop for state surveillance needs.

This July, the U.S. Commerce Department blacklisted Intellexa and Cytrox, both owned by different Israeli nationals, among them the former military intelligence commander Tal Dilian, after their spyware was used against human rights activists, journalists and politicians. Both Intellexa and Cytrox, which developed Predator, are at the center of a massive political wiretapping storm in Greece.

Documents obtained by this project show communications from the start of 2022 between Bernd Schmidbauer, the former coordinator of Germany’s intelligence services, and the BSI, Germany’s federal information security agency, charged with cyber security in the country. Schmidbauer tried to organize a meeting between Intellexa officials and the then-head of the BSI, Arne Schoenbohm, to pitch a defensive cyber security product created by Intellexa. The communications reveal that the BSI was hesitant, offering instead to coordinate a meeting with more junior representatives.

On January 27, Schmidbauer wrote: “I don't understand how it will work and who on your behalf will be at the meeting. We plan to include a world-class expert, a former Israeli prime minister, and the vice president [of Intellexa] who is responsible for strategy in Europe. Please get back to me and update me so we know how to proceed with the meeting.”

Despite Schmidbauer’s persistence, the meeting never took place – and the BSI backtracked all together, saying that they had no need for a defensive cybersecurity product from Intellexa.

The document seen by this investigation had the former Israeli prime minister’s name redacted, but after Shomrim contacted Olmert by phone, he confirmed that he had worked for Intellexa. When asked about a meeting in Germany, he said, “he was not there.” Olmert did not provide further details. Schmidbauer and Olmert were spotted dining in Berlin together with a number of German lawmakers in April 2022, according to German media. Olmert refused to answer further questions, noting he was on vacation. However, he did say the consulting work he did for Intellexa ended a number of months ago.

Unlike Pegasus spyware maker NSO, which is regulated by the Israeli defense ministry, Intellexa has long operated from outside of Israel – and Israeli oversight. In 2018 it bought Cytrox and merged it into the alliance of digital surveillance firms founded in Cyprus and Greece by Dilian. Cytrox developed the infamous Predator spyware in North Macedonia, with millions of dollars in initial funding from the state-owned Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI).

For years, Israel promoted spyware firms, most famously NSO, as part of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s “cyber diplomacy.” However, after NSO was added to the U.S. entity list over two years ago, sparking a crisis between the U.S. and Israel, Jerusalem changed course and started blocking the sales of spyware to non-Western countries.

A Haaretz investigation published last summer revealed Intellexa was picking up all the deals Israel had refused to authorize – selling their digital surveillance wares to countries like Ukraine or even a notorious militia in Sudan. Simultaneously, sources and forensic findings suggested that alongside countries in which Israeli firms were once allowed to work – such as Mexico, Ghana, Colombia and Greece – Dilian-linked firms have also inked deals with clients in Saudi Arabia, Oman, Malaysia, Indonesia and Sri Lanka.