>>> AstraZeneca "to miss out on US drug deal"

AstraZeneca "to miss out on US drug deal" - sources

Receptos is said to have rebuffed $200 per share bid approach from AstraZeneca

Drug giant AstraZeneca (LON:AZN) is set to miss out on a potential US takeover that could boost its line-up of new drugs, it emerged on Tuesday.

AstraZeneca had approached Receptos (NASDAQ:RCPT) about a potential $200 per share offer for the US pharmaceutical group, which develops therapeutics for immune disorders, according to market sources.

Two rivals, Israeli generic drug group Teva Pharmaceutical Industries (NASDAQ:TEVA) and US company Gilead Sciences (NASDAQ:GILD), are also understood to have proposed offering $280 per share for Receptos, which has a market capitalisation of $5.1bn.

But Nasdaq-listed Receptos, whose shares closed on Monday at $156.6, is said to have rejected all the possible bids, claiming they undervalued it.

It is instead believed to be prepared to accept an offer in the region of $350 per share.

"AstraZeneca has been looking to buy it but they're not going to get it," a source said.

An AstraZeneca spokesman said: "We wouldn't comment on market rumour or speculation."

AstraZeneca is on the lookout for acquisitions after fending off a hostile £69bn takeover bid from US rival Pfizer (NASDAQ:PFE) last year.

In its defence against Pfizer, the company predicted annual revenues would rise by more than 75% to $45bn by 2023.

It is targeting new treatments in oncology, in respiratory, inflammation and autoimmune diseases and in cardiovascular and metabolic conditions.

In November, it bought the rights for the development and commercialisation of Almirall's proprietary respiratory business.

And in the same month, its global biologics research and development arm Medimmune agreed to acquire privately owned Definiens, which has an imaging and data analysis technology to identify biomarkers in tumour tissue.

Meanwhile, Teva is involved in a war of words with Mylan Laboratories after the generic drug rival rejected its unsolicited $40bn takeover bid.

(TechCrunch) Inside GoPro’s Ambitious Plan To Connect Their Cameras To The Cloud

Inside GoPro’s Ambitious Plan To Connect Their Cameras To The Cloud

GoPro doesn’t want to be known just as a camera company. Instead, as I learned from GoPro’s CEO and Founder Nick Woodman, GoPro wants to be a lifestyle media company. To that end, the company is looking to cloud services to give owners an easier way to share all that rad action footage and build a new business based on content, not hardware.

GoPro cameras are designed to survive the harshest conditions possible. Yet they suffer from the same fundamental flaw as traditional cameras: content gets stuck on the SD cards inside the cameras. Smartphones address this problem by allowing pictures and videos to be shared instantly but users still have to go through several steps to share content, something Nick Woodman aims to reduce.
On the eve of the GoPro Mountain Games in Vail, Colo., I had the chance to sit down with GoPro founder and CEO Nick Woodman. He laments the content that gets stuck on his devices. He admitted that he has this problem, too. Like many of his customers (me included), he has stacks of SD cards with footage that he doesn’t have to time to edit. This is where the cloud services come into play.
“GoPro has to build an iTunes type management system that just works with people,” Nick said. “I didn’t realize that early on as a single guy. As soon as I became a Dad I had no more time to manage the content. We are sort of leaving our customers in a dark forest.”
Woodman stressed that GoPro’s cloud services are still in an early development. It’s clear he’s excited about it and sees this solution transforming his company from a camera maker to a media brand.
As Woodman explained it, when a camera is plugged in to be charged, the service would upload the footage to a cloud service, eliminating the tiresome task of manually transferring the data from an SD card into editing software. From the cloud service, customers could edit the footage and share it. Woodman also hinted that there could be a feature where long videos are cut into highlight reels, which if implemented, would facilitate more shared footage and that’s what GoPro wants.
As an example, he explained that in the future GoPro customers wouldn’t save the recorded the footage with a GoPro camera, but rather use the GoPro service to make unique content to share. The distinction is key.
Right now, people use GoPro cameras. Woodman hopes, with this cloud service, people will simply use GoPro.

“When we do this, people will think of GoPro in whole new way,” Woodman said.
He views this ability to be more relevant to parents and kids. When the cameras are connected to a cloud account, footage will no longer be stuck on a media card until the owner decides to do something with it. He believes this cloud service will drive more camera sales as suddenly owners will be able to enjoy the captured footage more easily.

This cloud service should provide GoPro with deep insights to their customers. Nick explained that GoPro currently does not have data on their customer’s demographics or usage patterns.
“You don’t yet register a camera with GoPro,” Woodman said. “You can, but there isn’t much of a value proposition for you to do so. But when the value proposition is you can register your camera to a cloud account, the amount of data we can get to better serve them will be massive.”
“We know very little about our customer,” he said. “Which the good thing is it tells you how broadly appealing this whole ‘I just want to capture the experience and those around me’ movement is and how well we’re doing. It’s not like we’re having to home in and look at very specific customer groups to drive growth.”
But if the company can get customers to connect their camera to cloud, GoPro should be flooded with a torrent of data — and securing that data could be the company’s next big challenge.
As a hardware company, GoPro simply needs to sell cameras. It doesn’t have to worry about data breaches or privacy control. These items become paramount if GoPro rolls out a cloud service like the one Woodman explained. Suddenly, GoPro is tasked with selling cameras and storing gobs of personal data, which will turn the company into a massive target.

I asked which company GoPro is partnering with for data storage and Woodman returned a “no comment” response.

Woodman wouldn’t reveal specific details about how a GoPro cloud service would work. It’s unlikely that GoPro would want to store full resolution files. More likely, resolutions and frame rates would be reduced to formats well suited for mobile viewing. GoPro recently released a cellular add-on that allows GoPro cameras to stream content directly to broadcasters — it’s likely that future high-end GoPro cameras will include this ability while the rest of the product line will have Bluetooth and WiFi capabilities.

One thing is clear: the experience needs to be perfect. If done right and launched in a timely fashion, it could be a boon for GoPro’s growth and ultimate security from smartphones eroding its market. But if launched prematurely with lackluster security, it could be company’s undoing. It’s up to Woodman to make sure that doesn’t happen.

>>> VODAFONE asset swap



Broker consensus

 

CITI

Which banana to swap for which? — The companies have operational overlap in seven Northern and Eastern European countries (Figure 3).

– Germany to Vodafone? — Relative size locally and preservation of tax assets (see Time to Ring the Liberty Bell?) point to Vodafone as the acquirer in

Germany.

– UK to Liberty? — Liberty is bigger than Vodafone in the UK and Ireland in EBITDA terms (though smaller by revenue) and its Virgin Media operation could

be instrumental in improving the profitability of Vodafone’s low margin UK mobile assets, partly by bringing its MVNO on net. Liberty also has sizeable UK tax

losses. However, Vodafone may wish to retain part of the C&W legacy assets to serve its enterprise customers. We see the largest synergy here.

– Netherlands to Liberty? — Liberty has the larger of the two’s assets in the Netherlands and the possibility of addressing synergy across the border with

Telenet in Belgium.

 

How to address an even division — This split in Northern European would advantage Liberty with Vodafone passing over £2.6bn in EBITDA (post 50% of the

synergy on our numbers - Figure 3) while Liberty hands back less than half that at £1.25bn. However to make up the difference, in our view Liberty could include its

assets in Eastern Europe and Switzerland (possible Austria too).

 

Switzerland and Eastern Europe — Liberty’s asset in Switzerland, while cable only, as a well invested fixed line player has the potential to take part in

convergence lines consolidation there in our view and also borders Vodafone’s assets in Italy and Germany. For Vodafone the Eastern European assets, while only

modest in size, could make its assets there more saleable by turning them into converged operators. In combination these would make the trade more even with

Liberty notionally providing £2.3bn in EBITDA for Vodafone’s £2.6bn, leaving matters of capital intensity and tax aside for now.

 

UBS

Focus likely to be on three key markets

Following press reports, VOD released a statement saying it is in early stage talks with LBTY over asset swaps, but is not in talks over a merger. LBTY has previously

highlighted UK, Germany and the Netherlands as the three key areas of overlap where notable synergies could be achieved.

 

VOD to swap UK/Netherlands for Germany?

Looking at the different permutations for asset swaps, we think both LBTY and VOD may be reluctant to divest of their largest units - UK and Germany respectively. One

solution could be for VOD to swap their UK consumer (50% of UK) and Dutch business for LBTY's German cable unit UnitymediaKBW. On a stand-alone basis, we value VOD

UK at £9.2bn ($13.8bn) for 100% and VOD NL at £2.7bn ($4bn). Assuming 10x annualised Q1-15 EBITDA, the implied value for LBTY DE would be £9.7bn ($14.6bn).

EC likely to review any deal

 

On regulatory clearance, the FCO in Germany could be a challenge given they would potentially view it as two-to-one consolidation in cable. However, we believe

jurisdiction for a deal involving asset swaps in three European markets would likely reside with the EC that are more likely to look at a broader definition of the market

that includes both fixed/mobile combined.

 

Valuation: PT based on SOTP/DCF

We think asset swaps could be a positive outcome for both VOD/LBTY – both companies can extract synergies and offer a converged fixed/mobile proposition

without having to pay a significant premium for the entirety of the other.Fundamentally we remain positive on VOD given upside risk to estimates from market

repair/growth in mobile data.