Business

By Nichola Saminather

(Reuters) -Royal Bank of Canada (RBC) on Wednesday missed analyst estimates for third-quarter profit, while National Bank of Canada did slightly better than expected, as the former’s capital markets business weighed on earnings while the latter’s helped lift them.

Canadian banks, which have mostly outperformed market expectations in recent quarters, are starting to see some negative impacts from market challenges and economic uncertainties.

RBC, the country’s biggest bank, is forecasting a moderate recession in Canada and the United States in 2023, and sees a 12% decline in average Canadian home prices from their peak, executives said on an analyst call.

In contrast, a recession is not National Bank’s base case, executives said on its analyst call, and said the bank sees a “soft landing” of the Canadian economy.

RBC took provisions for credit losses (PCLs) of C$340 million to guard against potential loan impairments, compared with a recovery of C$540 million a year earlier. National Bank, the smallest of Canada’s Big Six banks, had PCL of C$57 million, versus a release of C$43 million a year earlier.

“Current conditions (including unemployment and economic growth) are so benign and yet, there’s so much uncertainty in the forward views,” said National Bank’s chief risk officer, William Bonnell. “That’s why you’ll see very low impaired (loans) and yet pretty significant build in performing (loan) provisions.”

Royal Bank’s reported pre-tax, pre-provision earnings fell 3% from a year earlier, while National Bank’s rose 7%.

Shares of RBC dropped 3.1% to C$122.59, compared with a 0.1% gain in the Toronto stock benchmark. National Bank shares rose 0.5%.

RBC reported adjusted earnings of C$2.55 per share, compared with analysts’ expectations of C$2.66.

RBC saw a 58% decline in its capital markets earnings, which overshadowed strong margin expansion and loan growth in its banking business. It expects margins to rise another 10 to 15 basis points over the next couple of quarters, executives said.

RBC does not see much risk in its mortgage book until 2025 or 2026, when fixed loans taken at record-low rates during the pandemic come up for renewal, executives said.

National Bank posted earnings of C$2.35 a share, beating estimates of C$2.34.

Its 12% increase in capital markets earnings, driven by strong performance in its trading business, helped offset deals weakness. National Bank also reported strong growth in both commercial and mortgage loans.

Businesses and consumers still have savings above pre-pandemic levels, helping shield them from rising interest rates and keep delinquencies low, National Bank executives said on the analyst call.

On Tuesday, Bank of Nova Scotia’s earnings disappointed markets on a decline in profit in its capital markets business and lower margins from its international business.

($1 = 1.2974 Canadian dollars)

(Reporting by Nichola Saminather in Toronto; Additional reporting by Mehnaz Yasmin and Manya Saini in Bengaluru; Editing by Maju Samuel, Chizu Nomiyama and Leslie Adler)

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By Supantha Mukherjee

STOCKHOLM (Reuters) – Google’s Jigsaw subsidiary will next week launch a campaign aimed at tackling disinformation about Ukrainian refugees in Poland, Slovakia, and the Czech Republic based on research by psychologists at two British universities.

Working with Jigsaw, the psychologists from the universities of Cambridge and Bristol have produced 90-second clips designed to “inoculate” people against harmful content on social media.

The clips, which will run in advertising slots on Google’s YouTube video platform, aim to help people identify emotional manipulation and scapegoating in a news headline.

“If you tell people what’s true and false, a lot of people will dispute … but what you can predict are the techniques that will be used in spreading misinformation, like with the Ukrainian crisis,” Jon Roozenbeek, lead author of a report on the research behind the campaign, said in an interview.

The research was spread over seven experiments, including with a group of Americans over 18 years old who watch political news on YouTube. Jigsaw exposed around 5.4 million U.S. YouTubers to an inoculation video, with almost a million watching for at least 30 seconds.

The campaign is designed to build resilience to anti-refugee narratives, in partnership with local non-government organisations, fact checkers, academics, and disinformation experts.

The spread of misleading and fake information in the United States and Europe through social media networks has led to various governments pushing for new laws to stem disinformation campaigns.

“We are thinking of this as a pilot experiment, so there’s absolutely no reason that this approach couldn’t be scaled to other countries,” Beth Goldberg, head of research at Jigsaw, said in an interview.

“Poland was chosen because it has the most Ukrainian refugees,” she said, adding the Czech Republic and Slovakia would be useful bellwethers for the rest of Europe.

The campaign will run for one month.

(Reporting by Supantha Mukherjee in Stockholm; Editing by Mark Potter)

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By Bansari Mayur Kamdar and Noel Randewich

(Reuters) – Wall Street rose modestly on Wednesday, supported by gains in Salesforce and Intuit while investors awaited the U.S. Federal Reserve’s Jackson Hole conference this week.

Of the 11 S&P 500 sector indexes, eight rose, led by real estate, up 1.06%, followed by a 0.66% gain in consumer discretionary.

Boosting the tech-heavy Nasdaq, Tesla Inc gained almost 1% ahead of its stock split, while Intuit Inc <INTU.O> rallied 4.4% after the accounting software maker forecast upbeat fiscal 2023 revenue.

Salesforce Inc climbed 2.5% ahead of the business software seller’s quarterly report after the bell, with analysts expecting revenue to grow at its slowest pace in over a year.

The S&P 500 lost ground in the previous three sessions after a summer rally was halted by growing concerns of an aggressive stance by the Fed, an energy crisis in Europe and signs of economic slowdown in China.

Investor are now focused be on the Jackson Hole symposium that begins on Thursday, with remarks from Fed Chair Jerome Powell on Friday potentially providing clues about the pace of future rate hikes and whether the central bank can achieve a “soft landing” for the economy.

“The market is biding its time to get more information on the most important things, which are inflation and the Fed’s rate path,” said Tom Martin, senior portfolio manager at GLOBALT Investments in Atlanta.

Traders are divided between expecting a 50-basis point hike and a 75-basis point hike by the U.S. central bank. [FEDWATCH]

President Joe Biden said the U.S. government will forgive $10,000 in student loans for many debt-saddled college-goers, a move that could boost support for his fellow Democrats in the November congressional elections but also may fuel inflation.

Helped by corporate quarterly results that were not as bad as feared, the S&P 500 has recovered 14% from its mid-June lows. The benchmark index is set to end the year a little above its current level, according to strategists recently polled by Reuters.

In afternoon trading, the S&P 500 was up 0.15% at 4,135.02 points.

The Nasdaq gained 0.43% to 12,434.61 points, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 0.03% at 32,920.86 points.

Nordstrom Inc tumbled about 19% after the retailer cut its annual revenue and profit forecasts, a sign that inflation is squeezing consumer spending on its high-end clothing and footwear.

Advancing issues outnumbered falling ones within the S&P 500 by a 1.3-to-one ratio.

The S&P 500 posted one new high and 30 new lows; the Nasdaq recorded 31 new highs and 92 new lows.

(Reporting by Bansari Mayur Kamdar, Devik Jain and Sruthi Shankar in Bengaluru; Editing by Shounak Dasgupta and Marguerita Choy)

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By Rae Wee

SINGAPORE (Reuters) – The U.S. dollar steadied just below recent peaks on Wednesday, as investors waited to hear from the Federal Reserve and pondered whether weak U.S. data may slow the pace of rate hikes.

Disappointing U.S. services and manufacturing surveys released overnight and a plunge in new home sales last month knocked the greenback from a 20-year high on the euro, though not particularly hard as growth concerns are deeper in Europe.

The euro briefly bought $1 in New York trade, but was back under pressure at $0.99485 in the Asia trade – barely above Tuesday’s low of $0.99005. The yen steadied at around 136.73 per dollar.

The U.S. S&P Global flash composite PMI for August dropped to 45 – the lowest since May 2020 and in contractionary territory for a second straight month, while new home sales hit a 6-1/2 year low.

Sterling found some support overnight after Britain’s composite Purchasing Managers Index number managed to stay in growth territory, though it hasn’t really pierced investors’ gloom over British or Europe’s outlook.

The pound stood at $1.1810, after hitting a 2-1/2 year low of $1.1718 on Tuesday.

“It really is just a matter of time before the hard data reflects the reality of the brutal energy price rises confronting U.K. households,” said Ray Attrill, head of FX strategy at National Australia Bank.

Meanwhile, the Australian and New Zealand dollars remained at the mercy of global recession fears.

The Aussie fell 0.38% to $0.6903, while the kiwi slumped 0.42% to $0.6187.

All eyes now turn to Jackson Hole, Wyoming, where the Federal Reserve holds its annual symposium and Fed Chair Jerome Powell is due to speak on Friday.

The U.S. dollar index, which measures the dollar against a basket of currencies, rose 0.12% to 108.68 on Wednesday, and July’s two-decade high of 109.29 beckons.

“The Jackson Hole symposium is not really going to give us a huge amount of reasons to want to sell dollars,” said Chris Weston, head of research at Pepperstone in Melbourne.

“I think Powell might keep his foot down, and that continues to make us want to buy dollars. Any kind of pullback in the dollar remains a buying opportunity.”

Minneapolis Fed Bank President Neel Kashkari repeated the need for more aggressive rate hikes to control inflation in a speech on Tuesday.

(Reporting by Rae Wee; Editing by Shri Navaratnam and Kim Coghill)

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(Reuters) – Commodity trader Noble Group Ltd will pay a S$12.6 million ($9.03 million) penalty for releasing ‘misleading’ information in its financial statements between 2012 and 2016, the Monetary Authority of Singapore said on Wednesday.

The company, which was once the biggest commodity trader in Asia, saw its market value all but wiped out from $6 billion in 2015 after accusation of inflating its assets, forcing it to sell billions of dollars of assets, taking hefty writedowns and cut hundreds of jobs.

Singapore’s Accounting and Corporate Regulatory Authority, also issued warnings to two former directors of Noble Resources International Pte Ltd, which was Noble Group’s unit at the time, for failing to prepare and table financial statements in compliance with the country’s standards.

Noble Resources Trading Holdings Ltd, which was formed in 2018 as a part of Noble Group’s reorganisation and has since been under new ownership and management, in a separate statement welcomed the conclusion of the investigation.

“We are looking forward to continuing to work with our suppliers and serve our customers, building on the strong start to 2022,” it added.

($1 = 1.3950 Singapore dollars)

(Reporting by Indranil Sarkar in Bengaluru; Editing by Rashmi Aich)

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WASHINGTON (AP) — Millions of Americans were waiting to learn the fate of their federal student debt on Wednesday as President Joe Biden prepared to deliver on his campaign promise to provide up to $10,000 in debt cancellation.

Details of the plan have been kept closely guarded, but borrowers who earn less than $125,000 a year would be eligible for the loan forgiveness, according to three people familiar with the decision. Biden is also set to extend a pause on federal student loan payments through January.

If it survives legal challenges that are almost certain to come, Biden’s plan could offer a windfall to a swath of the nation in the run-up to this fall’s midterm elections. More than 43 million owe a combined $1.6 trillion in federal student debt, with almost a third owing less than $10,000, according to federal data.

Still, the action is unlikely to thrill any of the factions that have been jostling for influence as Biden weighs how much to cancel and for whom.

Biden has faced pressure from liberals to provide broader relief to hard-hit borrowers, and from moderates and Republicans questioning the fairness of any widespread forgiveness. The delay in Biden’s decision has only heightened the anticipation for what his own aides acknowledge represents a political no-win situation. The people spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss Biden’s intended announcement ahead of time.

The continuation of the pandemic-era payment freeze comes just days before millions of Americans were set to find out when their next student loan bills will be due. This is the closest the administration has come to hitting the end of the payment freeze extension, with the current pause set to end Aug. 31.

Wednesday’s announcement was set for the White House after Biden returns from vacation in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware. The administration had briefly considered higher education schools in the president’s home state for a larger reveal, but scaled back their plans.

During the 2020 presidential campaign, Biden was initially skeptical of student loan debt cancellation as he faced off against more progressive candidates for the Democratic nomination. Sens. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., and Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., had proposed cancellations of $50,000 or more.

As he tried to shore up support among younger voters and prepare for a general election battle against President Donald Trump, Biden unveiled his initial proposal for debt cancellation of $10,000 per borrower, with no mention of an income cap.

Biden narrowed his campaign promise in recent months by embracing the income limit as soaring inflation took a political toll and as he aimed to head off political attacks that the cancellation would benefit those with higher take-home pay. But Democrats, from members of congressional leadership to those facing tough reelection bids this November, have pushed the administration to go as broad as possible on debt relief, seeing it in part as a galvanizing issue, particularly for Black and young voters this fall.

The frenzied last-minute lobbying continued Tuesday even as Biden remained on his summer vacation. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., one of the loudest advocates in recent years for canceling student loan debt, spoke privately on the phone with Biden, imploring the president to forgive as much debt as the administration can, according to a Democrat with knowledge of the call.

In his pitch, Schumer argued to Biden that doing so was the right thing morally and economically, said the Democrat, who asked for anonymity to describe a private conversation.

Inside the administration, officials have discussed since at least early summer forgiving more than $10,000 of student debt for certain categories of borrowers, such as Pell Grant recipients, according to three people with knowledge of the deliberations. That remained one of the final variables being considered by Biden heading into Wednesday’s announcement.

Democrats are betting that Biden, who has seen his public approval rating tumble over the last year, can help motivate younger voters to the polls in November with the announcement.

Although Biden’s plan is narrower than what he initially proposed during the campaign, “he’ll get a lot of credit for following through on something that he was committed to,” said Celinda Lake, a Democratic pollster who worked with Biden during the 2020 election.

She described student debt as a “gateway issue” for younger voters, meaning it affects their views and decisions on housing affordability and career choices. A survey of 18- to 29-year-olds conducted by the Harvard Institute of Politics in March found that 59% of those polled favored debt cancellation of some sort — whether for all borrowers or those most in need — although student loans did not rank high among issues that most concerned people in that age group.

Some advocates were already bracing for disappointment.

“If the rumors are true, we’ve got a problem,” Derrick Johnson, the president of the NAACP, which has aggressively lobbied Biden to take bolder action, said Tuesday. He emphasized that Black students face higher debut burdens than white students.

“President Biden’s decision on student debt cannot become the latest example of a policy that has left Black people — especially Black women — behind,” he said. “This is not how you treat Black voters who turned out in record numbers and provided 90% of their vote to once again save democracy in 2020.”

John Della Volpe, who worked as a consultant on Biden’s campaign and is the director of polling at the Harvard Kennedy School Institute of Politics, said the particulars of Biden’s announcement were less important than the decision itself.

“It’s about trust in politics, in government, in our system. It’s also about trust in the individual, which in this case is President Biden,” Della Volpe said.

Combined with fears about expanding abortion restrictions and Trump’s reemergence on the political scene, Della Volpe said student debt forgiveness “adds an additional tailwind to an already improving position with young people.”

Republicans, meanwhile, see only political upside if Biden pursues a large-scale cancellation of student debt ahead of the November midterms, anticipating backlash for Democrats — particularly in states where there are large numbers of working-class voters without college degrees. Critics of broad student debt forgiveness also believe it will open the White House to lawsuits, on the grounds that Congress has never given the president the explicit authority to cancel debt on his own.

The Republican National Committee on Tuesday blasted Biden’s expected announcement as a “handout to the rich,” claiming it would unfairly burden lower-income taxpayers and those who have already paid off their student loans with covering the costs of higher education for the wealthy.

“My neighbor, a detective, worked 3 jobs (including selling carpet) & his wife worked to make sure their daughter got quality college degree w/no student debt,” Rep. Kevin Brady, R-Texas, the top Republican on the House Ways and Means Committee, tweeted Tuesday. “Big sacrifice. Now their taxes must pay off someone else’s student debt?”

Biden’s elongated deliberations have sent federal loan servicers, who have been instructed to hold back billing statements while Biden weighed a decision, grumbling.

Industry groups had complained that the delayed decision left them with just days to notify borrowers, retrain customer service workers and update websites and digital payment systems, said Scott Buchanan, executive director of the Student Loan Servicing Alliance.

It increases the risk that some borrowers will inadvertently be told they need to make payments, he said.

“At this late stage I think that’s the risk we’re running,” he said. “You can’t just turn on a dime with 35 million borrowers who all have different loan types and statuses.”

___

AP Education Writer Collin Binkley in Washington contributed to this report.

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NEW DELHI (Reuters) – Indian billionaire Gautam Adani, Asia’s richest man, is making his biggest media bet with a bid to buy a majority stake in New Delhi Television (NDTV).

Adani’s coal-to-edible-oils conglomerate has been on a deals spree over the past two years.

BUYS:

MEDIA

A unit of the Adani group used financial rights in a bid to buy a 29.18% stake in NDTV, apart from an open offer for another 26% in line with Indian regulations. Adani announced the move on Aug. 23 but NDTV, which has a market valuation of about $300 million, said its consent was not sought.

POWER

Adani Power Ltd, India’s largest private thermal power producer, said on Aug. 19 that it would buy thermal power plant operator DB Power for an enterprise value of 70.17 billion rupees ($878.61 million).

ROAD ASSETS

Adani Enterprises said on Aug. 4 that a unit would buy Macquarie Asia Infrastructure Fund’s India toll roads in Andhra Pradesh and Gujarat states for 31.10 billion rupees.

PORT

Israel said on July 14 that it would sell Haifa Port, a major trade hub on its Mediterranean coast, to Adani Ports and local chemicals and logistics group Gadot for 4.1 billion shekels ($1.18 billion).

CEMENT

The Adani Group said in mid-May that it would buy Holcim AG’s cement businesses in India for $10.5 billion, its largest-ever acquisition, to become the country’s No. 2 cement manufacturer.

SALES:

RENEWABLES

* French energy major TotalEnergies said in June that it would buy a 25% stake in Adani New Industries Ltd, as part of a deal with Adani Enterprises to develop the world’s biggest green hydrogen ecosystem.

* Total said in January 2021 that it was paying $2.5 billion for a share in Adani Green Energy Ltd and its solar power assets.

($1 = 79.8650 Indian rupees)

(Compiled by Krishna N. Das; Editing by Muralikumar Anantharaman)

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By Chavi Mehta

(Reuters) – Twitter Inc misled federal regulators about its defenses against hackers and spam accounts, the social media company’s former security chief Peiter Zatko said in a whistleblower complaint.

In an 84-page complaint, Zatko, a famed hacker widely known as “Mudge,” alleged Twitter falsely claimed it had a solid security plan, according to documents relayed by congressional investigators. Twitter’s shares fell 7.3% to close at $39.86.

The document alleges Twitter prioritized user growth over reducing spam, with executives eligible to win individual bonuses of as much as $10 million tied to increases in daily users, and nothing explicitly for cutting spam.

Twitter labeled the complaint a “false narrative.” The social media company has been battling Elon Musk in court after the world’s richest person attempted to pull out of a $44-billion deal to buy Twitter. Musk said it failed to provide details about the prevalence of bot and spam accounts.

Tesla Inc Chief Executive Musk had offered to buy Twitter for $54.20 per share, saying he believed it could be a global platform for free speech.

Twitter and Musk have sued each other, with Twitter asking a judge on the Delaware Court of Chancery to order Musk to close the deal. A trial is scheduled for Oct. 17.

Zatko filed the complaint last month with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and the Department of Justice, as well as the Federal Trade Commission (FTC). The complaint was also sent to congressional committees.

“We are reviewing the redacted claims that have been published but what we have seen so far is a false narrative that is riddled with inconsistencies and inaccuracies,” Twitter Chief Executive Parag Agrawal told employees in a memo.

The Senate Judiciary Committee’s top Republican, Chuck Grassley, said the complaint raised serious national security concerns and privacy issues and needed to be investigated.

“Take a tech platform that collects massive amounts of user data, combine it with what appears to be an incredibly weak security infrastructure, and infuse it with foreign state actors with an agenda, and you’ve got a recipe for disaster,” he said.

The FTC declined to comment. A spokesperson for the Senate Intelligence Committee said it had received the complaint and was setting up a meeting to discuss the allegation.

Twitter’s real regulatory risk lies in whether the documentary evidence shows “knowing or reckless misleading” of investors or regulators, said Howard Fischer, a partner at Moses & Singer and a former SEC attorney.

‘GIVE A LITTLE WHISTLE’

Musk could not be reached for comment but reacted on Twitter with memes and emoji https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1562105413977493504 of a robot. Musk’s legal team has subpoenaed Zatko, CNN reported after the whistleblower disclosure was made public.

American hackers have admired Zatko since the 1990s, when he was credited with inventing a tool to crack passwords. He later used his hacking chops to become a sought-after security consultant and with other rebellious techies of the era, transitioned to top government and boardroom positions.

The whistleblower document says that after the Jan. 6 riots, the incoming Biden administration offered him “a day-one appointed position as Chief Information Security Officer for the United States,” which he turned down.

Cybersecurity leaders expressed widespread support for Zatko, and many deplored Twitter’s reaction to his revelations.

Robert Lee, founder of industrial cybersecurity company Dragos, said it was “one of the very rare times based on who it is I don’t even need to know a detail to form an opinion,” he said on Twitter. “If Mudge is making this type of claim, it deserves the investigation.”

In January, Twitter said nL1N2U11KV Zatko was no longer its head of security, two years after his appointment to the role.

On Tuesday, a Twitter spokesperson said Zatko was fired for “ineffective leadership and poor performance,” adding his allegations appeared designed to capture attention and inflict harm on Twitter, its customers and its shareholders.

Debra Katz and Alexis Ronickher, attorneys for Zatko, said in a statement that throughout his tenure at Twitter, he repeatedly raised concerns about inadequate information security systems to the company’s executive committee, CEO and board. Twitter did not respond to a request for comment on that statement.

(The story corrects closing price and removes extraneous percentage symbol in paragraph 2.)

(Reporting by Chavi Mehta, Ankur Banerjee and Tiyashi Datta in Bengaluru, Peter Henderson in Oakland and Raphael Satter in Washington; Additional reporting by Rick Cowan in Washington; Writing by Ankur Banerjee; Editing by Kenneth Li, Saumyadeb Chakrabarty, Sriraj Kalluvila and David Gregorio)

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SHANGHAI (Reuters) – CATL, the world’s largest electric vehicle (EV) battery manufacturer, more than doubled its profit in the second quarter as Chinese authorities rolled out incentives to boost EV sales to cushion the impact of lockdowns during the period.

CATL, whose clients include Tesla, Volkswagen and BMW, booked a net profit of 6.68 billion yuan ($974.61 million) from April to June, according to Reuters calculations based on the company’s filings, up 164% from a year ago.

Revenue also surged to 64.29 billion yuan in the three-month period, from 24.91 billion yuan a year ago, Reuters calculations showed.

The company said that a COVID outbreak during the period, which included lockdowns in several cities including Shanghai, had some impact on its domestic market. Demand, however, remained strong as local authorities rolled out incentives to promote EV sales and companies launched new models.

EV sales growth bucked an overall trend of weakening auto sales in the major markets of China, Europe and the United States, which were hit by COVID and supply chain issues, CATL said.

In China, EV sales surged 120% in the first half, while overall vehicle sales fell 6.6%, according to the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers.

Rising metal prices, especially lithium, however, weighed on CATL’s profit margin on EV batteries, which fell to 15.04% from 22% at the end of 2021.

CATL said it had taken measures including signing long-term contracts with suppliers, recycling materials and negotiating a dynamic battery pricing scheme with automakers to ease the pressure of rising costs.

The company is also accelerating its expansions in overseas markets with contracts to supply batteries to clients including Mercedes-Benz and BMW in Europe and Ford in the United States, where government incentives are driving demand for EVs.

It announced earlier this month that it would build a $7.6 billion battery plant in Hungary, Europe’s largest so far.

CATL’s market share in the global EV battery market reached 34.8% in the first half, extending its lead with a 6.2 percentage points increase from a year ago, according to data from SNE Research.

South Korea’s LG Energy Solution, which posted a 73% plunge in the second quarter profit, followed CATL with a share of 14.4%.

($1 = 6.8540 Chinese yuan renminbi)

(Reporting by Zhang Yan and Brenda Goh; Editing by Jamie Freed)

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By Aimee Donnellan and Natalie Grover

LONDON (Reuters) -AstraZeneca may not stay in the vaccine business in the long run, its CEO told Reuters on Tuesday, showing how quickly fortunes have changed for the drugmaker that produced one of the first COVID-19 shots but has since lost out to rivals. Production delays, probes by regulators following rare cases of severe side effects and concerns about its relatively short shelf life compared with other shots have stymied adoption of the company’s COVID-19 vaccine.

Now, in the third year of the pandemic amid a global vaccine supply glut, its use has diminished in much of the developed world as countries have inoculated large numbers of people and prefer Pfizer and Moderna’s mRNA vaccines as boosters.

AstraZeneca’s COVID vaccine has still not won U.S. approval.

The London-listed company is building on its portfolio of antibody therapies, including for COVID-19, the respiratory virus RSV and other viruses, Soriot said in a Reuters Newsmaker interview on Tuesday.

But on the future of its COVID vaccines business, he said: “I can’t be sure we will be there or not.”

He also said he wasn’t sure if AstraZeneca would broaden its roster of vaccines for other infections either, adding the company was looking into it.

Investors have speculated about the future of the vaccine business given slowing sales of the COVID shot as initial sales contracts have been fulfilled, stiff competition from mRNA vaccines and its relatively little expertise in the field.

The company created a separate division for vaccines and antibody therapies late last year.

Still, Soriot said he did not regret the company’s work with Oxford University to develop a COVID vaccine, given they had delivered billions of doses and saved an estimated 6 million lives across the globe.

The inoculation was AstraZeneca’s second best-selling product in 2021 with sales of $3.9 billion.

AstraZeneca is also looking for bolt-on acquisitions, including small and mid-sized companies specialising in oncology and cardiovascular treatments, Soriot added.

“We always look for external opportunities,” he said.

KEEP ON DOING THIS JOB

The CEO has presided over a quadrupling of AstraZeneca’s share price in his decade at the helm.

“I can keep doing this job for many years,” he said.

The 63-year old was once seen as a natural successor to outgoing Chairman Leif Johansson.

But in July, Soriot quashed speculation he was planning to retire any time soon, saying he expected to work with the company’s newly announced chairman-designate Michel Demare for many years to come.

Soriot was tasked with turning around a troubled AstraZeneca – hit by a string of key patent losses and a spate of clinical trial failures – in October 2012, following a stint at pharma peer Roche.

With the Frenchman at the helm, the fortunes of the Anglo-Swedish drugmaker changed dramatically after he sharpened focus on speciality medicines and the lucrative field of oncology, made acquisitions to refill the company’s medicine cabinet, fended off a hostile takeover from U.S. pharma giant Pfizer, and invested heavily in R&D to improve the company’s lacklustre drug development success rate.

However, he warned on Tuesday that fewer innovative medicines would be developed going forward due to new U.S. drug price laws.

Asked about inflationary pressures, Soriot said: “We are going to have to become more innovative and productive. We can’t expect our selling prices to go up.”

(Reporting by Aimee Donnellan and Natalie GroverEditing by Mark Potter)

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