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(Reuters) - Airbus (AIR.PA) faces billions of dollars of fines after agreeing in principle to a settlement with French, British and U.S. authorities following a crippling three-year investigation into allegations of bribery and corruption.
A settlement would allow it to avoid criminal charges which, if proven, could have led to the company being disbarred from public contracts in the United States and European Union - a massive setback for one of Europe’s top defense and space firms.
The European planemaker has been investigated by French and British authorities for suspected corruption over jet sales dating back over a decade. It has also faced U.S. investigations over suspected violations of export controls.
Announcing the agreement, Airbus - which dominates with U.S. rival Boeing (BA.N) the commercial airliner market - said it could not comment on the size of settlements, which still need court approval.
Press reports cited a figure of around 3 billion euros ($3.3 billion), while some industry analysts have suggested sums as high as 5 billion euros, dwarfing a previous settlement by aero-engine maker Rolls-Royce (RR.L) over the use of middlemen.
One person who has closely followed the case estimated the settlement would be three to four times the $809 million paid by Rolls-Royce in a deal with U.S., UK and Brazilian agencies in 2017.
Airbus shares rose, however, as traders welcomed the closure of one of the most damaging chapters in the company’s 40-year history. The stock was up about 1.3% at 1100 GMT.
“Sorting out the fraud investigation is likely to remove a major overhang for the company,” said Vertical Research Partners analyst Rob Stallard.
British and French investigations began after Airbus drew the attention of regulators to misleading and incomplete declarations it had made to Britain’s export credit finance agency over payments to sales agents. Britain’s Serious Fraud Office (SFO) launched its probe in August 2016, followed seven months later by France’s Parquet National Financier (PNF).
It was not immediately clear to what extent the U.S. part of any settlement would stick to the separate issue of export control violations or include the broader corruption case.
The U.S. Department of Justice has signaled a close interest in the bribery affair while mainly allowing Britain’s SFO to take the lead, according to people familiar with the matter.
Nor was it clear whether a deal would lead to individual prosecutions, which are not covered by corporate plea deals.
AGENT NETWORK
At the center of the case was a decades-old system of third-party sales agents run from a now-disbanded headquarters unit which at its height involved some 250 people in parts of the world and several hundreds of millions of euros of payments a year, sources familiar with the matter have said.
In 2014, then finance director Harald Wilhelm ordered a halt to all third-party payments, triggering a massive internal probe and claims from unpaid consultants.
The investigation, which racked up legal bills of around 100 million euros a year, led to a board-driven clearout of the company’s top management and plunged the company into years of self-examination, hampering its sales efforts.
Nobody has been accused of wrongdoing but Airbus acted to clear out its senior ranks to improve its chances of winning a U.S.-style deferred prosecution agreement (DPA), insiders said.
In a landmark 2017 ruling setting the bar for future settlements, a British judge had described Rolls-Royce as “dramatically changed” with a new leadership and culture.
Airbus has fired more than 100 people over ethics and compliance issues as a result of its own probe into the allegations, which widened to other divisions.
FILE PHOTO: An Airbus A350 takes off at the aircraft builder's headquarters in Colomiers near Toulouse, France, September 27, 2019. REUTERS/Regis Duvignau
But the internal probe led to anger within the Franco-German firm and its jetliner sales teams who said they had no influence over the tightly controlled agent system, insiders said.
It also threatened to reopen Franco-German tensions over Airbus as French sources complained the row diverted attention from a separate probe into fighter jet dealings with Austria, partially overseen by German-born Tom Enders who later served as chief executive. Enders has denied any wrongdoing.
A further German probe into potential misuse of client documents is ongoing.
Additional reporting by Kirstin Ridley; editing by Jason Neely and Mark Potter
FILE PHOTO: A trader works on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange shortly after the opening bell in New York, U.S., January 24, 2020. REUTERS/Lucas Jackson
(Reuters) - U.S. stocks opened more than 1% lower on Monday, on concerns about the financial fallout of a fast-spreading coronavirus outbreak in China.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average .DJI fell 447.24 points, or 1.54%, at the open to 28,542.49. The S&P 500 .SPX opened lower by 48.31 points, or 1.47%, at 3,247.16. The Nasdaq Composite .IXIC dropped 222.45 points, or 2.39%, to 9,092.46 at the opening bell.
Reporting by Sruthi Shankar in Bengaluru; Editing by Saumyadeb Chakrabarty
ZURICH (Reuters) - U.S. drugmaker AbbVie’s (ABBV.N) $63 billion tie-up with Allergan (AGN.N) is getting help from Nestle (NESN.S) and AstraZeneca (AZN.L) buying up products the Irish-domiciled company is shedding to placate regulators.
FILE PHOTO: The Allergan logo is seen in this photo illustration November 23, 2015. To match special report USA-FDA/CASES REUTERS/Thomas White
AbbVie is swallowing Allergan to give it control of the lucrative wrinkle treatment Botox and to diversify a portfolio heavily dependent on its $19-billion-per-year arthritis drug Humira, the world’s best-selling medicine that is advancing toward U.S. patent expiration.
Swiss food group Nestle bulked up its medical nutrition business with Allergan’s Zenpep, a product with 2018 sales of $237 million which treats people whose pancreases do not provide enough enzymes to digest fats, proteins and sugars.
Nestle did not give financial details, but analysts from Zuercher Kantonalbank estimated the takeover could have cost the Vevey, Switzerland-based company more than $1 billion.
Meanwhile, AstraZeneca is regaining rights to brazikumab, Allergan’s experimental drug against Crohn’s Disease and ulcerative colitis. The European Commission said this month the immunology medicine must be divested because of the risk its development would be halted after AbbVie’s takeover because of competing medicines.
“These definitive agreements represent significant progress toward the completion of our acquisition of Allergan,” Richard Gonzalez, AbbVie’s chairman and chief executive, said.
With regulators wary of the deal’s anti-competitive potential, rivals are getting a chance to stock their own product shelves.
Nestle Chief Executive Mark Schneider, who also gets Allergan’s Viokace, another pancreatic enzyme product, in Monday’s deal, is bulking up on nutrition products that combine properties of medicine and food as the Swiss company expands in areas where growth may outpace its mainstream food business.
“This is a significant opportunity for our business in the United States,” Greg Behar, head of Nestle Health Science, said in a statement.
AstraZeneca’s pact for brazikumab marks a return of the inflammation medicine to the British drugmaker’s portfolio. In 2016, Astra had struck a licensing deal with Allergan worth up to $1.5 billion for the medicine.
With its return to AstraZeneca, Allergan has agreed to fund development costs for brazikumab in Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis, including the creation of a companion diagnostic, AstraZeneca said in a separate statement.
“This agreement creates an opportunity for us to complete the full development program and bring this potential new treatment option to patients as quickly as possible,” Mene Pangalos, Astra’s biopharmaceuticals research head.
Even if Allergan must foot the development bill, analysts appeared underwhelmed, in part because AbbVie’s Skyrizi, or risankizumab, a similar medicine, has a head start.
“This could be another autoimmune product to add to Astra’s portfolio, although it will be somewhat late to the market,” Liberum’s Alistair Campbell wrote in a note to investors.
Reporting by John Miller in Zurich and Ludwig Burger in Frankfurt; Editing by Alexander Smith
India in renewed push to sell Air India, puts entire stake on the block
An Air India Airbus A320neo plane takes off in Colomiers near Toulouse
By Aftab Ahmed and Aditi Shah
NEW DELHI (Reuters) - The government said on Monday it plans to sell its entire interest in Air India Ltd, in a renewed push to sell the airline after an attempt to auction a majority stake almost two years ago failed to draw any bids.
A document released on Monday showed March 17 as the deadline for submission of initial expressions of interest, and that any bidder must assume liabilities including 232.87 billion rupees ($3.28 billion) in debt.
Substantial ownership and effective control of the airline must remain with an Indian entity, the government also said.
The potential sale of an airline kept aloft by a $4.2 billion 10-year bailout in 2012 comes as the government divests of money-losing assets to manage the fiscal deficit.
The latest offer should garner significant response partly because it involves a clean exit by the government, said CAPA aviation consultancy India head Kapil Kaul.
"As the entire debt excluding aircraft debt is taken out of the deal, it signals a very determined effort to exit Air India to allow taxpayers' funds be utilised for the government's social agenda," said Kaul.
The government in 2018 to sell 76% of Air India and offload about $5.1 billion of its debt, with terms including the retention of all employees.
InterGlobe Aviation Ltd's <INGL.NS> IndiGo and Jet Airways Ltd <JET.NS> - which has since collapsed - initially showed interest but opted out after the terms were disclosed.
Steel-to-autos conglomerate Tata Group, widely viewed as a potential suitor for Air India, also decided not to bid after deeming the terms too onerous, sources told Reuters at the time.
A successful bidder would win control of Air India's 4,400 domestic and 1,800 international landing and parking slots at Indian airports, as well as 900 slots at airports overseas.
It would also get 100% of low-cost arm Air India Express and 50% of AISATS, which provides cargo and ground handling services at major Indian airports, the bid document showed.
The buyer would also have to provide 3% of the value of the airline's equity as stock options for permanent employees.
Air India has about 9,400 permanent employees and 3,600 fixed-term contract staff - including 1,850 pilots and 4,600 cabin crew - with benefits such as discount air tickets and pensions.
Its employees protested against the 2018 sale attempt, and it was not immediately clear if they would also resist the latest effort. The government said it will provide details on safeguarding employee interests in its final bid document.
A spokesman for the airline's employee union did not have immediate comment.
(Reporting by Aditi Shah and Aftab Ahmed; Writing by Euan Rocha; Editing by Muralikumar Anantharaman and Christopher Cushing)
The 252-foot-long passenger plane had been due to launch this year but has been delayed by some technical difficulties.
The 777X is a larger and more efficient version of Boeing's successful 777 mini-jumbo. Standout features include folding wingtips and the world's largest commercial engines.
"It represents the great things we can do as a company," said 777X marketing director Wendy Sowers.
Boeing says it has sold 309 of the plane - worth more than $442 million each at list prices.
The plane will go head-to-head with the Airbus A350-1000 which seats about 360 passengers.
Boeing has been in crisis since the 737 Max crashes, which occurred within five months of each other - first in Indonesia in October 2018 and then in Ethiopia last March.
It is facing multiple investigations amid accusations that it sacrificed safety as it rushed to get its jets to customers. It is attempting to have the plane re-approved for flight.
The grounding of the 737 Max, which had been Boeing's best-selling plane, is estimated to have already cost Boeing more than $9bn.
The 252-foot-long passenger plane had been due to launch this year but has been delayed by some technical difficulties.
The 777X is a larger and more efficient version of Boeing's successful 777 mini-jumbo. Standout features include folding wingtips and the world's largest commercial engines.
"It represents the great things we can do as a company," said 777X marketing director Wendy Sowers.
Boeing says it has sold 309 of the plane - worth more than $442 million each at list prices.
The plane will go head-to-head with the Airbus A350-1000 which seats about 360 passengers.
Boeing has been in crisis since the 737 Max crashes, which occurred within five months of each other - first in Indonesia in October 2018 and then in Ethiopia last March.
It is facing multiple investigations amid accusations that it sacrificed safety as it rushed to get its jets to customers. It is attempting to have the plane re-approved for flight.
The grounding of the 737 Max, which had been Boeing's best-selling plane, is estimated to have already cost Boeing more than $9bn.
