FT : China targets economic growth of around 6.5 per cent

China targets economic growth of around 6.5 per cent
Focus on debt, internet finance risks in final year of President Xi’s first term

China has lowered its annual economic growth target to “around” 6.5 per cent, as Beijing plans to focus on risk control in the final year of President Xi Jinping’s first term. 

The figure, down from the government’s target growth range of 6.5 to 7 per cent for 2016, was revealed on Sunday morning by Premier Li Keqiang in his annual “work report” to China’s parliament, the National People’s Congress. Actual growth came in at 6.7 per cent last year.

“At present, overall systemic risks are under control,” Mr Li said. “But we must be fully alert to the build-up of risks, including risks related to non-performing assets, bond defaults, shadow banking and Internet finance.” He added that his government was also concerned about “high leverage in non-financial Chinese firms”. 

The NPC session, which runs for two weeks, is the last before the country’s ruling Communist party convenes a congress at the end of the year that will mark the beginning of Mr Xi’s second term in office and install his allies in a number of key posts. 

Over the past year, the government has appointed new heads of the securities and banking regulators as well as the National Development and Reform Commission, an economic planning agency. Most are reform-minded technocrats who have sounded the alarm about the risks stemming from speculative bubbles in China’s property, equity and insurance sectors. 

This contrasts with a policy debate that broke out in wake of last year’s NPC session about China’s growing debt levels, which some officials felt were necessary to support economic growth. That debate has since been settled in favour of officials who feel the government should pay more attention to financial and economic risks even if it results in slower economic growth. 

“Financial supervisors should fix weak links and act hard against illegal activities,” Mr Xi said ahead of the NPC session. He also reiterated the need to rein in China’s runaway housing prices, especially in large, economically prosperous cities, noting that “houses are built to be lived in, not [for] speculation”. 

Reflecting Beijing’s caution, Mr Li said the government’s fiscal deficit target would remain unchanged at three per cent of GDP; last year it came in at 3.8 per cent. On Saturday, an NPC spokesperson confirmed that there would be only a modest increase in China’s defence budget of about seven per cent. 

Eswar Prasad, a China finance expert at Cornell University, said the premier’s lower growth target was “symbolically important”.

“[It signals] the government’s concerns about rising financial risks and environmental degradation wrought by the earlier emphasis on high growth at all costs and the unbalanced growth model that sustained it,” he added.

In his work report, Mr Li also predicted that fixed asset investment, a key driver for the world’s second-largest economy, would increase nine per cent. Fixed-asset investment grew only 8.1 per cent last year, below the government’s initial target of 10.5 per cent. 

Retails sales growth is also expected to moderate slightly to ten per cent this year. Mr Li raised the government’s urban job creation target to 11m new positions from 10m in 2016. Last year Beijing exceeded its official urban jobs target by more than 30 per cent. 

Mr Li admitted that the government’s efforts to steer the economy to a “new normal” of slower, less debt-dependent growth was a difficult one. "Like the struggle from chrysalis to butterfly, this process of transformation and upgrading is filled with promise but also accompanied by great pain," the premier said.

Many analysts have been disappointed by what they see as the government’s reluctance to implement bold economic reforms over recent years. “There remains a gap between the stated priorities and actual reform efforts,” said Prof Prasad. “Nevertheless, it is clear that the leadership recognizes the enormous challenges it faces in steering the economy on to a sustainable growth path.”

Zhou Hao, Commerzbank economist, said that “China’s policy stance has turned to risk control".

“Monetary policy will gradually tighten,” he added. “China still faces pressure from the US as the Fed is about to raise interest rates.”

Last week Janet Yellen, chair of the US Federal Reserve, said that an interest rate hike was likely before the end of the month.

The Chinese government has been fighting to slow the renminbi’s three-year decline against the dollar, a fall which could exacerbate trade tensions with the US. China’s currency almost fell through Rmb7 : $1 at the end of last year, but has settled at around Rmb6.9 over recent months.

Speaking on Saturday, Yi Gang, a central bank vice governor, said that China “will never devalue the renminbi to promote exports. “China is a responsible country,” he added. “Our overall direction is to keep the exchange rate basically stable.”

(9to5mac) Report: Eddy Cue recently met w/ Paramount & Sony execs as Apple mulls

According to a new report from the New York Post, Apple’s Eddy Cue has spent the last few weeks reaching out to major film and TV studios. The report claims that Cue has met with Paramount Pictures and Sony TV, though specific details of those meetings are unclear at this point.


Today’s report cites an unnamed source who explains that Apple is “preparing something big” in terms of original content. One executive reportedly left the meeting with Cue under the impression that Apple is looking for a “transformative acquisition and not just a deal to buy TV shows.”
The report also explains, however that Apple’s original content efforts seem a bit scatter-brained at this point. Hollywood executives are reportedly unclear as to who specifically is leading Apple’s efforts, with Eddy Cue, Jimmy Iovine, and Robert Kondrk all talking to different people:
“Robert Kondrk, Eddy Cue, Jimmy Iovine, everyone is trying to be the person,” one insider told The Post. “They each want to be the guy, and they’re telling people, don’t deal with the other one.”
“Eddy is talking to some people. Jimmy is talking to others,” noted a second insider. “They just haven’t figured it out.”
This also isn’t the first we’ve heard about Apple’s in acquisitions related to original content. Last year, it was reported that Apple had approached Time Warner regarding a potential acquisition, but ultimately Time Warner won out.
Other reports, however, have suggested that Apple isn’t necessarily willing to go “all-in” with original video at this point, despite making selected efforts.
Cue’s meetings with Paramount and Sony come as Apple continues to express an interest in original video content. The company is debuting its reality series “Planet of the Apps” later this year, as well as its spin-off of the viral Carpool Karaoke series.
As Apple continues to put a focus on Services, original content would allow for yet another revenue stream as part of that category. Though, it still seems as if Apple doesn’t exactly know what it wants to do when it comes to creation original content. So, as of now, only time will tell what the future holds.

FT : Standard Life confirms Aberdeen Asset Management takeover talks

Standard Life confirms Aberdeen Asset Management takeover talks
An £11bn deal would create the UK’s largest fund manager

Standard Life is in late-stage discussions to acquire Aberdeen Asset Management in an all-stock deal that would create the UK’s largest money manager with £660bn of assets and be worth around £11bn. 

The companies confirmed the talks on Saturday evening in a joint statement that said a deal would “leverage Standard Life and Aberdeen’s combined strengths to create a world class investment company”.

They added that Standard Life would own 66.7 per cent of the combined group, while Aberdeen would owning the remaining one-third. Under the terms of the deal, Aberdeen shareholders would receive 0.757 new shares in Standard Life.

Martin Gilbert, who co-founded Aberdeen in 1983 and remains its chief executive, and Keith Skeoch, who became chief executive of Standard Life in 2015, would become co-chief executives of the new business. 

Mr Gilbert has been searching for a merger partner for months as Aberdeen’s business is disproportionately exposed to emerging markets and his company’s funds have been plagued by investor withdrawals. Talks with Mr Skeoch intensified at the start of the year, according to one person close to the situation.

A new board would be formed with equal representation from the two companies and will be lead by Sir Gerry Grimstone, Standard Life chairman. Aberdeen’s chairman, Simon Troughton, would become deputy chairman. 

Bill Rattray of Aberdeen would become chief financial officer and Rod Paris of Standard Life would serve as chief investment officer.

Aberdeen has a market value of £3.7bn and is almost half the size of Standard Life, which is worth £7.5bn. Rumours that Aberdeen was searching for a deal had spread throughout the London market over the past week, with some traders putting on speculative bets in recent days. 

The companies added: “There can be no certainty that any transaction will occur nor as to the terms on which any transaction may occur.” As the acquiring party, Standard Life has until the close of business on April 1 to formalise its offer to buy Aberdeen under UK takeover rules.

The talks come as midsized asset managers specialising in active management are under pressure from larger competitors such as BlackRock and Vanguard. 

Both Aberdeen and Standard Life Investments focus on actively picking stocks and bonds, an investment style which has come under additional pressure from the rise of cheap index-tracking funds. 

One of their rivals Henderson recently merged with its US competitor Janus Capital in an attempt to fend off these competitive threats. By combining, asset managers often look to rip out redundant costs and also fire underperforming managers. 

A senior fund manager at a rival European investment house, who declined to be identified, said he would expect to see “lots of job losses” in the event of a merger between the Scottish companies. The two companies employ around 9,000 people in total. 

He added: “This would be immensely logical and imaginative, unlike the Janus/Henderson deal, given the strength of Standard Life’s distribution and the manufacturing strength of Aberdeen. I can see how it [would be] well received by both sets of shareholders.”

If a deal were to go ahead between FTSE 250-listed Aberdeen and the investment business of Standard Life, the combined group would overtake Schroders, which oversees £397bn of assets, as the UK’s largest standalone fund company. 

Standard Life has been making a push into fund management over the past 10 years, distancing itself from its insurance roots in the process. Its Gars range of funds has been described as the “fund management success story of the past decade” by analysts at RBC Capital Markets.

But its performance has stuttered over the past year. Gars failed to beat its benchmark in 2016, and customers have been pulling their money out. That has been a drag on Standard Life’s share price, which has underperformed other big insurance companies such as Aviva and Prudential over the past year. 

Aberdeen has also faced significant problems due to its heavy focus on emerging markets, which have been out of favour with investors over the past four years. Last month Aberdeen recorded its 15th consecutive quarter of net outflows, bringing total redemptions from the FTSE 250 asset manager to more than £100bn since the cycle of withdrawals began. 

A number of prominent hedge funds began betting against Aberdeen’s share price in light of those problems, although all short positions against the Scottish fund house were removed in January for the first time in four years.

FT : Standard Life/Aberdeen talks underscores threat to asset managers

Standard Life/Aberdeen talks underscores threat to asset managers
Traditional money groups face intense competition from low-cost passive rivals

Standard Life’s late-stage discussions to acquire Aberdeen Asset Management underscore the threat traditional money managers face from low-cost competitors.

An £11bn combination of Scotland’s two biggest investment companies would create the UK’s largest fund house and allow Aberdeen and Standard Life to rip out costs and oust underperforming managers at a time when both companies are losing assets to cheaper passive funds that track the market.

An M&A banker, speaking on condition of anonymity, said: “This feels like an attempt to smash the two companies together and take costs out. They are both smack in the centre [of the problems caused by] the rise of passive funds.”

The companies confirmed the talks on Saturday evening in a joint statement. Standard Life would own 66.7 per cent of the combined group, while Aberdeen would own the remaining one-third. 

Aberdeen recorded its 15th consecutive quarter of net outflows last month, while Standard Life’s flagship fund range, Gars, has performed poorly over the past year with investors withdrawing a net £4.3bn in 2016. The investment teams at both companies focus on actively picking stocks and bonds. 

Amin Rajan, chief executive of Create Research, the asset management consultancy, said: “The threat from passives is keeping CEOs awake at night.”

According to figures from the data provider Morningstar, assets managed in passive mutual funds grew 4.5 times faster than active funds in 2016. Since 2007 the passive fund market has grown four times faster. 

The Anglo-Australian asset manager Henderson’s take over of its US rival Janus Capital in October last year was expected to kickstart a raft of defensive deals in the sector as investment houses battle with pressure on fees and rising regulatory costs.

A senior fund at a rival investment company said: “This is absolutely about scale, with fees under pressure and costs rising.” 

If a deal were to go ahead between the two Scottish fund companies, the combined entity would employ about 4,400 staff and oversee £570bn of assets. This would catapult the combined group up the rankings of Britain’s biggest fund companies, overtaking Schroders, the UK’s largest standalone investment house that oversees £397bn of assets. 

Analysts highlight other large insurance-owned investment companies, including Prudential’s asset management business M&G, and Legal & General Investment Management, as alternative partners for Aberdeen or Standard Life should their talks fall apart. 

The all-Scottish merger initially raised questions about the future of Aberdeen’s boss and serial deal maker Martin Gilbert. Aberdeen, which has a market value of £3.7bn, is almost half the size of Standard Life, which is worth £7.5bn, meaning that Aberdeen would be the junior partner in any deal.

But in the statement released on Saturday night the two companies confirmed that Martin Gilbert, who co-founded Aberdeen in 1983, and Keith Skeoch, who became chief executive of Standard Life in 2015, would become co-chief executives of the new business. 

Bill Rattray of Aberdeen would become chief financial officer and Rod Paris of Standard Life would serve as chief investment officer.

Mr Gilbert has previously said he would never sell Aberdeen. The 62-year-old Scot famously said he would only retire when his friend Sir Alex Ferguson, former manager of Manchester United, stepped down from football management. When Sir Alex retired in 2013 at the age of 71, Mr Gilbert later said he too would carry on until he was 71. 

Mr Rajan says: “Aberdeen has grown hugely under his stewardship, notwithstanding the recent haemorrhaging of assets. He would want to ensure that the merger will take it on to a new trajectory.”

A new board would be formed with equal representation from the two companies and will be lead by Sir Gerry Grimstone, Standard Life chairman. Aberdeen’s chairman, Simon Troughton, would become deputy chairman. 

A merger between Aberdeen and Standard Life Investments is expected to trigger redundancies at the combined group. However any deal would also enable Aberdeen to leverage Standard Life’s strong distribution capabilities, while Standard Life would benefit from Aberdeen’s investment expertise in areas like Asian equities. 

“This would increase the scale of Standard Life quite significantly, and its full-year results showed the challenges the company faces in terms of margin compression and outflows. It strikes me that there is a lot of logic to this deal,” said an insurance banker, who asked to remain anonymous. 

Analysts expect more deals will follow, and highlight Jupiter and Ashmore, the FTSE 250 fund houses, as two of the most likely takeover targets in the months to come. Maarten Slendebroek, Jupiter chief executive, told the Financial Times earlier this month that his company was a “very attractive” takeover target. 

Consultants at McKinsey estimate that a third of the profits earned by investment managers globally could be “wiped out” by 2018, unless more radical steps are taken to cut costs amid growing regulatory and competitive pressures. 

The world’s two largest asset managers, BlackRock and Vanguard, which specialise in passive investing, had the largest inflows in their history last year. BlackRock took in net inflows of $202bn in 2016, while Vanguard attracted $315.3bn of net new money.

Regulators globally are simultaneously scrutinising the active investment industry. The UK watchdog has launched a wide-ranging investigation of the asset management market, which is expected to dent profit margins for active fund houses. Investment companies are also struggling to comply with sprawling reforms, such as the EU’s Mifid II regulations.

Haley Tam, an analyst with Citi in London, says: “As more fund flows head to passive, only the best will survive and competition between active s to outperform will intensify.”

NYT : Signet Jewelers’ Balance Sheet Gets Extra Sparkle

Signet Jewelers’ Balance Sheet Gets Extra Sparkle

That nugget from Warren Buffett came to mind Tuesday as shares of Signet Jewelers, operator of Jared, Kay and Zales jewelry stores, plummeted. The drop followed disclosures, initially by The Washington Post, of an explosive sexual discrimination case filed by a group of the company’s former employees.
The lawsuit’s lurid allegations of abusive employee treatment have no merit, the company said in a statement. Still, the details were troubling enough to whack Signet’s stock. Once a highflier, it is down 11 percent from where it was trading before the allegations became public. At around $65, the stock is well off its peak of $150 in October 2015.
Beyond the sex discrimination case, what else might Signet shareholders worry about? Let’s just say some of the company’s accounting choices make its operations look rosier than they probably are.
Signet is the world’s largest retail jeweler, operating 3,600 stores in the United States, Canada and Britain. Sterling Jewelers is its largest division, which includes Kay and Jared stores. Signet bought Zales in 2014.
But Signet is not just a jewelry retailer — it is also a finance company. When a customer shops for an engagement ring at a Jared or Kay outlet, the company offers to finance the purchase in-house.
Offering in-house credit is unusual in retailing. And it sets up a conflict for management: Does the company maintain strict credit decisions to protect its balance sheet, or loosen them to generate sales and executive bonuses?
In recent research reports, William Ryan, an analyst at Compass Point Research & Trading in Washington, D.C., expressed concerns that Signet is relaxing credit standards to plump up sales.
“Companies in every economic cycle cross a threshold where they go from prudent financing to overstimulating their sales with easy credit,” Mr. Ryan said in an interview. “It’s nothing more than trying to meet expectations and bonuses.”
Mr. Ryan said he thought Signet started to cross that line in fiscal 2015. For fiscal year 2014, credit participation at its Sterling division was 57.7 percent; in the most recent full year, it was 61.5 percent.
By contrast, credit participation at Zales, which has traditionally outsourced its financing, is around 40 percent.
Asked whether it was relaxing its credit standards to lift revenues, David A. Bouffard, a company spokesman said, “No, the company’s risk tolerance level has not changed.”
The recent increase in credit sales is significant. Every 1 percent of sales supported by the in-house financing program contributes about 4 percent of the company’s pretax profits, Mr. Ryan told clients in a note last fall. This makes the company “highly susceptible to changes in credit trends and underwriting standards.”
Here’s another potential problem: When a company provides internal credit to customers, it is eager to book the revenues associated with those transactions. But when customers fall behind on their payments, company management may be loath to recognize losses. This can result in a mismatch between the recognition of revenues and losses.
Sterling’s net credit portfolio stood at $1.7 billion in the most recent quarter. For the most recent nine months, the company’s charge-off rates increased 8.1 percent, while reserve levels increased by only 0.1 percent.
“There is a ‘zombie’ component of the portfolio that should be written off,” Mr. Ryan wrote in a recent note. “Any write-off would represent profits that were previously recognized that should not have been.”
Signet’s shareholders may not be fully aware of the risks in its in-house credit portfolio. That’s because it uses an unusual — and lenient — accounting method that minimizes delinquencies and makes a loan portfolio appear to be performing better than it would under a stricter approach.
When assessing delinquencies among its in-house loans and setting up loan loss provisions, Signet uses the so-called recency accounting method. This approach computes delinquencies based on the date of the last full contractual payment on a loan.
Under Signet’s system, if a customer has made one full scheduled payment over a 90-day period, that loan is considered current.
But under contractual accounting, which is far more common, that loan would be considered delinquent. That’s because contractual accounting looks at the amounts past due in accordance with a loan’s original payment terms.
Even using the relaxed method, Signet’s delinquency rates are high: It reported a 22.9 percent rate in its most recent quarter, up from 22.3 percent a year earlier.
But those numbers become downright alarming given that recency accounting tends to understate delinquencies by approximately 50 percent, analysts say.
Signet’s use of recency accounting versus the more conservative method came up last fall in a letter from the Securities and Exchange Commission.
Asked to explain its use of recency accounting, Signet defended the approach, stating that it believes it “provides a more accurate reflection of its customers’ performance relative to the ultimate collectability of the customer account.” Further, it said its loan loss allowances took into account not just the age of the debt, but also “facts and circumstances specific to each of our account holders, macroeconomic trends and information, and other qualitative factors.”
Mr. Ryan disputed this argument, flatly noting in a recent report that Signet’s use of the recency method “does not give an accurate portrayal of the credit quality of the portfolio.”
I asked Mr. Bouffard, Signet’s spokesman, why the company doesn’t tell its shareholders how different its delinquency calculations would be under the stricter approach. He pointed me to Signet’s letter responding to the S.E.C., in which the company said recasting bad debt expense would be neither a relevant nor a meaningful disclosure for shareholders.
Disclosures by another finance company that uses recency accounting do not support this stance, however.
World Acceptance Corporation, a consumer finance company in South Carolina, uses recency accounting. But it also discloses results under the contractual method. In its most recent annual report, for example, World Acceptance noted that accounts past due by 60 days or more stood at 4.7 percent on a recency basis. Computed on a contractual basis, they were 7.1 percent.
That’s a pretty wide gulf.
Given the beating that Signet shareholders have taken recently, you’d think the company would be interested in giving them more information, not less.

(LeTemps.ch) L’affaire François Fillon? Un complot pour éloigner la France du re

L’affaire François Fillon? Un complot pour éloigner la France du redressement économique
Deux interventions de personnalités hautement respectables viennent confirmer leur soutien à François Fillon et démontrent une machination indigne orchestrée dans l’orbite du pouvoir, avance Arnaud Pineau-Valencienne, partisan affirmé du candidat de la droite et du centre

Au cours de ce dernier quinquennat, la France n’a pas entrepris les réformes tant attendues. Quarante économistes avaient lancé un appel en faveur du candidat de la gauche, pour un résultat économique nul! Appel relayé avec bienveillance par la presse sans échange contradictoire possible. Le silence des «instances de contrôle» sur cette intervention partisane reste une énigme.

Une fois élu, le président a laissé ses ministres et collaborateurs se déchaîner contre leurs collègues allemands, qui eux avaient réformé leur pays avec courage, détermination. Monsieur Wolfgang Schäuble, ministre allemand des finances, n’a pas cessé de demander à la France de respecter ses engagements et de faire les réformes attendues. Il ne fait qu’exprimer le bon sens, ignoré des dogmatiques de gauche. Monsieur Schäuble n’est pas antifrançais, il a rendu un vibrant hommage à Jacques Rueff en préfaçant le livre de l’ancien rédacteur en chef de la Voix-du-Nord, Gérard Minart, «Jacques Rueff, un libéral français».

Un programme cohérent
Seul François Fillon parmi les candidats à l’élection présidentielle a compris le rôle que doit jouer un gouvernement pour créer un environnement propice à la croissance par une économie libérée, comme souhaité par nos partenaires européens. Il a annoncé un programme cohérent pour créer le cadre incitatif tant attendu et pour redresser impérativement notre économie. Les résultats de la primaire de la Droite et du Centre le plébiscitent, alors pour tous ses adversaires il est subitement devenu: l’homme à abattre!

Depuis quatre décennies notre peuple a choisi de privilégier l’assistanat à l’effort, pensant que l’Etat n’avait qu’à redistribuer des richesses, fussent-elles éphémères ou fragiles. La France avait besoin de l’effort de tous pour plus de créativité. Les Français n’ont pas vu le danger d’affaiblir la compétitivité industrielle, déjà frappée et mise à mal par les deux chocs pétroliers. La gauche et les radicaux-socialistes préfèrent exploiter tout simplement les mouvements d’opinion. Les partis veulent conquérir le pouvoir à tout prix mais n’analysent jamais leurs erreurs. Emmanuel Macron partage la responsabilité de l’échec de l’exécutif sortant, il tente un rassemblement du peuple par l’exaltation affective tous azimuts, au milieu de nombreuses incohérences, il trouve le moyen d’insulter notre histoire.

Les principes de Jacques Rueff et Milton Friedman
En économie, il faut comprendre que pour redistribuer quelque chose, seule la richesse créée le permet! Les politiciens aux idées de gauche méprisent les principes élémentaires de l’économie de Milton Friedman ou de Jacques Rueff.

Le pragmatisme du général de Gaulle l’opposait à tout ce qui a été entrepris depuis 1981: «Les gens de gauche ont rarement de grands projets. Ils font de la démagogie et se servent des mouvements d’opinion. La gauche tire le haut de la société vers le bas, par idéal d’égalitarisme. C’est comme ça que l’on a fini dans l’abîme en 1940… Les socialistes sont d’éternels utopistes, des déphasés, des apatrides mentaux. Ils gaspillent toujours la plus grande partie des crédits. On ne les a jamais vus dépenser efficacement les crédits… Je n’aime pas les socialistes, car ils ne sont pas socialistes… parce qu’ils sont incapables, ils sont dangereux.»

Le président sortant n’accepte pas l’idée que les Français se réveillent, sa gestion du pays est désavouée. Les performances économiques du pays placent la France en queue du classement européen. La Cour des Comptes n’est pas avare de critiques envers l’exécutif, le mot de Lamartine est à propos: «(…) Soit que déshérité de son antique gloire / De ses destins perdus il garde la mémoire (…)»

L’assassinat politique démasqué révèle l’exécutif à la manœuvre
Deux interventions de personnalités hautement respectables, aux compétences morales et juridiques incontestables, viennent confirmer leur soutien à François Fillon et démontrent une machination indigne orchestrée dans l’orbite du pouvoir. Elles décortiquent le processus mis en œuvre à la lumière des principes de droit et des dispositions constitutionnelles. Une pression sournoise est exercée sur le peuple pour orienter son jugement, capter son vote, cela par instruction judiciaire interposée…

- Aline Lizotte philosophe, théologienne et enseignante nous interpelle: «Une seule issue, la colère du peuple».

- Treize juristes de haut vol, professeurs de droit, avocats, se réunissent pour dénoncer ensemble «un coup d’Etat institutionnel» de l’exécutif contre François Fillon.

Ce n’est pas la première fois que des hommes politiques font usage de ces méthodes pour atteindre la sensibilité morale de l’électeur et orienter ou désorienter son vote au profit de leur candidat.

La Ve République doit être ce que la république a toujours été, selon son fondateur: «La souveraineté du peuple, l’appel de la liberté, l’espérance de la justice.» En plébiscitant François Fillon lors de la primaire, les Français ont exprimé la force de leur raison, rien ne doit les distraire de la victoire.

Reuters - Sanofi, Regeneron say latest Dupixent eczema drug tests positive

Sanofi, Regeneron say latest Dupixent eczema drug tests positive

Drugmakers Sanofi (SASY.PA) and Regeneron (REGN.O) said on Saturday results from a one-year test of their Dupixent product aimed at adults with eczema or moderate-to-severe atopic dermatitis (AD) had been positive.

"In the CHRONOS study, Dupixent used with topical corticosteroids showed significantly greater clearance of skin lesions and overall disease severity compared to topical corticosteroids alone, which are commonly prescribed for moderate-to-severe atopic dermatitis," Andrew Blauvelt, the principal investigator of the study, said in a joint statement from the companies.

"This study provides positive long-term data for Dupixent, which is important given atopic dermatitis is a chronic inflammatory disease," he said.

A biologics licence application (BLA) for Dupixent was accepted for Priority Review by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in September 2016.