Latest news with #French-Australian
The Guardian
2 days ago
- Business
- The Guardian
Ministers take note: now is the moment to fight to keep AstraZeneca's listing in London
It was an opportunity for Sir Pascal Soriot, as chief executive of AstraZeneca, the UK's finest pharmaceutical firm, to kill the story stone dead if he wished. Does he want to move the company's stock market listing to the US, as reported by the Times a few weeks ago? He declined to answer. Then he did something else: he turned his press conference after Tuesday's half-year numbers into a declaration of love, more or less, for all things American. 'The US is the country in our industry where innovation is taking place,' he said, noting that half the group's sales will be in the US by 2030. The new multibillionaire manufacturing facility in Virginia – part of a $50bn investment in the US over the next five years – had progressed to signoff in 33 days. The US administration is considering AstraZeneca's proposals for reducing medicine prices for Americans. 'We are a very American company,' said the French-Australian Soriot at one point, name-checking his various American senior colleagues. True, he also said AstraZeneca is 'committed' to the UK, but he was referring directly to sites such as the £1bn research and development in Cambridge, rather than the stock market listing. An analysis followed on the failings of Europe, the UK included, versus the US and China in terms of backing pharmaceutical innovation. The US invests 0.8% of its GDP in the sector, he said, versus 0.3% in Europe. He wished the UK could aim for 0.5%, and then 0.6%, to provide a bit of competition. What to make of this (clearly) preplanned response? One could shrug and say any chief executive of a globally active pharmaceutical company would be foolish not to sing the praises of the US at a moment when its president is throwing tariffs around and has steep local drug prices in his sights. Shifting investment to the US makes sense in that context. Also, Soriot's grumbles about Europe are not new. The specific frustrations with the UK flow from the price the NHS pays for prescription medicines plus the value-for-money rules that are applied to new drugs. Most pharma companies make similar noises on that score. Yet the stock market listing – the bit Soriot left hanging in the air – is the new angle here. It would have been a simple matter for him to say, as many other large FTSE 100 companies with large US operations do, that there is no tension between a London listing and an increased operational focus state-side. But he didn't. The government should take note. A relisting would be expensive for AstraZeneca if it included a redomicile (and, otherwise, what's the point?), but ministers cannot rule it out, or just assume Soriot is making a power-play as part of the industry-wide negotiations on medicine prices. The stakes here are too high for complacency. A defection by the UK's largest quoted company would blow a hole in two government missions: firstly to inject life into the London stock market, and secondly to make the UK a 'life sciences superpower'. Unfortunately, the government is also starting on the back foot with AstraZeneca after the fiasco with the £450m Speke vaccine plant in Liverpool. Accounts are disputed but the most plausible reading is that the company lost patience after the Treasury tried to shave a few million quid off the support package agreed under the last government. Whatever the details, the result was for a terrible own-goal for a 'pro-growth' government. Sign up to Business Today Get set for the working day – we'll point you to all the business news and analysis you need every morning after newsletter promotion The government's other difficulty is the lack of cash to throw at NHS medicines, the factor that may persuade Soriot to start talking enthusiastically about AstraZeneca's British roots once again. One hopes political cogs are turning behind the scenes because something has to give. If Soriot still isn't committing publicly to the UK listing in six months' time, there is a big problem.
Sydney Morning Herald
02-05-2025
- Business
- Sydney Morning Herald
Penfolds' new wine is controversial and boasts a super-sized price tag. What's the fuss about?
At $3500 a bottle, Penfolds-Jaboulet La Grange is sure to be a bloody fine wine. What should we make of the latest crazily priced Penfolds wine, the French-Australian shiraz, Penfolds-Jaboulet La Grange? Is it just marketing? ―A.C., Wangaratta, VIC Wine has long had one foot in the luxury business. First Growth Bordeaux, Château d'Yquem and grand cru Burgundy have been luxury wines for centuries. Now California, Tuscany, Champagne and dozens of other regions have luxury wines because there are more prosperous people in the world who want to drink them. Penfolds' owner, Treasury Wine Estates, is committed to joining the global luxury goods business. The controversial wine is a 50/50 blend of Penfolds Grange with one of the most exalted French wines, Paul Jaboulet's Hermitage La Chapelle, which is also a syrah (shiraz). Both parts are 2021 vintage and the price is $3500 for one bottle. To some collectors, it doesn't matter that they could buy a bottle of each and blend them in their kitchen for a lot less money ($1800). International blending of wine isn't rare. Jacob's Creek bottles and Coolabah casks had Chilean wine in them last century when – it's hard to believe now – we had a shortage of grapes. Up until the early 20th century, it was common, in Bordeaux, to blend wine from other parts of France to bolster its red in bad years. Château Palmer revived this recently with its Historical XIXth Century Wine, which blends Rhône Valley syrah with Bordeaux cabernet and merlot. Penfolds also makes special bottlings that blend South Australia wines with those from California and Bordeaux. 'Collectors could buy a bottle of each and blend them in their kitchen for a lot less money ($1800).' At the end of the day, the Penfolds-Jaboulet La Grange is sure to be a bloody fine wine. Indeed, all of the Pennies wines with the super-sized price tags that I've tasted over the years are excellent and very age-worthy, so they satisfy the collector/speculator buyer as well as the wine-loving drinker. It's not for me – it's not aimed at anyone on a wine-writer's budget – but I don't have a complaint about the fact that it exists, as some critics evidently do. Psst! If anyone out there has a bottle of the La Grange, I'd love to try it.
The Age
02-05-2025
- Business
- The Age
Penfolds' new wine is controversial and boasts a super-sized price tag. What's the fuss about?
At $3500 a bottle, Penfolds-Jaboulet La Grange is sure to be a bloody fine wine. What should we make of the latest crazily priced Penfolds wine, the French-Australian shiraz, Penfolds-Jaboulet La Grange? Is it just marketing? ―A.C., Wangaratta, VIC Wine has long had one foot in the luxury business. First Growth Bordeaux, Château d'Yquem and grand cru Burgundy have been luxury wines for centuries. Now California, Tuscany, Champagne and dozens of other regions have luxury wines because there are more prosperous people in the world who want to drink them. Penfolds' owner, Treasury Wine Estates, is committed to joining the global luxury goods business. The controversial wine is a 50/50 blend of Penfolds Grange with one of the most exalted French wines, Paul Jaboulet's Hermitage La Chapelle, which is also a syrah (shiraz). Both parts are 2021 vintage and the price is $3500 for one bottle. To some collectors, it doesn't matter that they could buy a bottle of each and blend them in their kitchen for a lot less money ($1800). International blending of wine isn't rare. Jacob's Creek bottles and Coolabah casks had Chilean wine in them last century when – it's hard to believe now – we had a shortage of grapes. Up until the early 20th century, it was common, in Bordeaux, to blend wine from other parts of France to bolster its red in bad years. Château Palmer revived this recently with its Historical XIXth Century Wine, which blends Rhône Valley syrah with Bordeaux cabernet and merlot. Penfolds also makes special bottlings that blend South Australia wines with those from California and Bordeaux. 'Collectors could buy a bottle of each and blend them in their kitchen for a lot less money ($1800).' At the end of the day, the Penfolds-Jaboulet La Grange is sure to be a bloody fine wine. Indeed, all of the Pennies wines with the super-sized price tags that I've tasted over the years are excellent and very age-worthy, so they satisfy the collector/speculator buyer as well as the wine-loving drinker. It's not for me – it's not aimed at anyone on a wine-writer's budget – but I don't have a complaint about the fact that it exists, as some critics evidently do. Psst! If anyone out there has a bottle of the La Grange, I'd love to try it.
South China Morning Post
04-03-2025
- Entertainment
- South China Morning Post
Meet Channing Tatum's new girlfriend, model Inka Williams: Australia-born and Indonesia-raised, she's been called the ‘Gigi Hadid of Bali' and has modelled for Vogue Arabia
Four months after his break up with ex-fiancée Zoë Kravitz, Channing Tatum, 44, has a new Aussie love interest in his life. The Magic Mike actor was spotted spending some quality time with Australian model Inka Williams at the Santa Monica Proper Hotel in January. More recently, the two appeared together at an exclusive pre-Oscars party in Los Angeles – with Kravitz also in attendance. Advertisement In an interview for Elle magazine's March issue, Zoë Kravitz , who dated Tatum for three years before they called it quits in 2024, spoke of her relationship with Tatum and working on their 2024 film, Blink Twice. 'I care for him very much,' Kravitz said. 'Even when you bring up how great his performance is [in Blink Twice], it warms my heart to hear that, and I'm so happy that all of it happened.' 'I just feel so grateful that we got to go on that journey together,' she added. As it seems both Tatum and Kravitz are moving on from their relationship, here's everything to know about Channing Tatum's much younger girlfriend. She's been a model since she was six months old Inka Williams has been modelling since early childhood. Photo: @inkawilliams/Instagram According to her IMDB bio, Inka Williams is of French-Australian descent. She was born on September 9, 1999 in Melbourne but was raised in Bali, Indonesia, as per Williams was only six months old when she did her first photo shoot, and has since appeared in advertisements for brands such as O'Neil, Volcom, Supre and Spell Designs, as per her IMDB.
