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More details for innovation tenderers
Bayer hopes steady growth continues
Ball on a roll
Profits hard to find
Wrinkle cream stretches to cosmetics
Frito-Lay woos organic market
Guilt-free chocolate?
Just so you
know…
Research by the American Cancer
Society has linked obesity to one in five deaths among women, and one
in seven among men, a total of about 90,000 a year. Three of five
Americans are more than four kilograms overweight.
Procter & Gamble
may be a top producer of consumer goods, but it also churns out
entrepreneurial bosses. Among them are Ebay’s Meg Whitman, GE’s Jeff
Immelt, 3M’s Jim McNerney, former GM chairman and P&G boss John
Smale, and Intuit founder Scott Cook.
America’s love affair with Uncle
Sam (Walton, that is) appears to be over. Labour unions and consumer
groups in Michigan accuse Wal-Mart, the world’s biggest retailer,
of destroying three jobs for every two it creates, of underpaying staff,
especially women, and forcing half of them into food stamp programmes,
condoning exploitative labour practices among off-shore suppliers, and
shifting health care costs to its suppliers. “Of the 10 richest people
in the world, five are Waltons, the ruling family of Wal-Mart,” they
say.
Austria's largest brewer, Brau
Beteiligungs, is in talks to sell itself to Europe's top beer makers.
In the frame are Belgium's Interbrew or Amsterdam-based Heineken.
European
Commission
More
details for innovation tenderers
The European Commission has
published a correction to its earlier notice for calls to tender for
projects to research six areas of innovation activity and effectiveness.
The scheduled date for the start of
the procedure is May/June 2003. The full corrigendum is at http://ted.publications.eu.int/static/doccur/en/en/70471-2003.htm.
Finance
Bayer hopes
steady growth continues
Bayer chairman Werner Wenning told
shareholders the German chemical company should show a double-digit
increase in operating profit, provided current economic conditions do not
seriously worsen.
Group sales from continuing
operations in the first quarter of 2003 increased by more than four
percent to EUR7.3 billion, and by over 15 percent in local currencies.
Provisional figures operating profit for the same period of 2002 beat
EUR840 million. "So the year clearly got off to a good start, and we
plan to build on that," said Wenning.
He warned that a powerful upswing
is unlikely because of the ongoing weakness of the financial markets and
the continuing high price of oil, and an economic recovery in Germany is
not expected before the end of this year at the earliest.
In 2002 the most significant
transaction was the acquisition of Aventis CropScience, which increased
the sales contribution from life sciences businesses to more than 50
percent for the first time.
The company also implemented a
divestment program worth about EUR5.5 billion. Of the resulting EUR4
billion in net proceeds, EUR3 billion was already realised in 2002.
Ball on a
roll
US packaging firm Ball Corporation
reported record first quarter earnings of $31.5 million, or 55 cents per
share, on sales of $1.07 billion, compared to $27.5 million, or 48 cents
per share, on sales of $876 million in the first quarter of 2002.
The results include its first
contribution from the Schmalbach-Lubeca business, now renamed Ball
Packaging Europe that it acquired in December 2002.
Ball chairman David Hoover said
"We had a challenging quarter for our packaging segments, as we knew
we would. Meanwhile our aerospace and technologies segment continued its
strong performance.
"We expect 2003 earnings to
exceed $3.60 per diluted share, with second half results being slightly
greater than those of the first six months," Hoover added.
Profits
hard to find
US ingredients house Technology
Flavors & Fragrances lost a cent a share on sales that slumped from
$4.2 million to $3.8 million in first quarter ended March 31, 2003.
TFF chairman Philip Rosner said
"We've stepped-up our sales and marketing activities through the
hiring of an additional sales account executive and more extensive media
advertising. We believe these activities as well as upcoming new customer
product launches, which have been delayed, will further boost sales and
earnings."
TFF has a proprietary library of
more than 36,000 flavour and fragrance product formulations that are used
in more than 1,200 products sold by more than 500 customers worldwide.
New products
Wrinkle
cream stretches to cosmetics
US retailer Nordstrom is taking an
underground consumer current into the mainstream with an agreement to sell
Klein-Becker’s StriVectin-SD stretch mark cream through its cosmetics
counters and Web site as an anti-ageing aid.
The move follows word of mouth
recommendations from women who tried it on themselves, tests by skin
specialists, and media tests. StriVectin's key active ingredient is an
oglio-peptide called Pal-KTTKS.
Frito-Lay woos
organic market
 PepsiCo’s snack food subsidiary
Frito-Lay has launched a line of snacks that have received the USDA’s
stamp for organic purity. The Natural range includes Tostitos organic blue
corn tortilla chips, Cheetos natural white cheddar puffs and Lay's Natural
Country BBQ potato chips.
"We are seeing a growing
consumer demand for organic snack choices," said Tracy LaRosiliere,
vice president of marketing.
Earlier Frito-Lay promised to cut
all transfats from its core brands.
Guilt-free
chocolate?
US-based Da Vinci Gourmet has
launched a sugar-free, low carbohydrate chocolate sauce. It is aiming at
the 116 million Americans on calorie-restricted diets because of weight
problems or diabetes. The new sauce, which is based on the Splenda
sugar-based sweetener, is used in coffee drinks, such as mochas, hot
cocoas, in a shake or for baking.
Da Vinci claims its new sauce cuts
calories from 100 to 15 and carbohydrates from 23 to 5 compared to regular
chocolate sauce. It sells to consumers in 58 countries through cafes,
coffee houses and its web site. |
