20.12.2010

Whilst the volumes tend to go down toward Christmas holidays, plenty of order and deal news pushed Nordic markets higher. The Eurozone consumer confidence number came in worse than expected. The three new companies I mentioned yesterday, that entered the OMXC20 today massively outperformed those that were taken off the index to give them room.

Vestas got the positive news it had been expecting for as U.S. President Barack Obama’s tax package included favourable conditions for wind industry. The stock showed a classic case of ‘buy the rumour and sell the news’ as Vestas slumped 4.65% after climbing over 12% during the last couple of weeks.

Novozymes has signed an agreement to to acquire one of the world’s leaders in crop-enhancing (plant health and crop yield improvement) products EMD/Merck Crop BioScience Inc (a product of EMD Crop BioScience and Merck Crop BioScience and owned by Merck KGaA). Merck’s Chemicals gearing toward life science industries gave Novozymes the opportunity to snatch a company it has ”long admired”. The purchase price is certainly not low though, coming in at 275 million USD and rather subdued market reaction did seem to hint market judges the acquisition a fair but not cheap purchase.

Clavis Pharma drug candidate elacytarabine for late-stage acute myeloid leukaemia received FastTrack status by the U.S. Food & Drug Administration (FDA). Newspaper Politiken ran an article on the expectations that Novo Nordisk has on the Chinese market now that the company has a research center in Beijing. The company foresees explosive growth in Diabetes patient numbers in the country. Novo Nordisk also sent out a release that it now owns 4.8% of its own shares as a result of initiating a share repurchase programme On 27 October 2010.

Skanska will build a Legal Center in Malmö. The value of the contract is around 300 million Swedish Kronor. Saab received two orders from Swedis Dfence Material Administration totalling 131 million Kronor. Atlas Copco will invest around 450 million SEK to expand rock drilling tools production capacity in Fagersta, Sweden.

Trelleborg has agreed to acquire UK’s leading polyurethane moulder PPL Polyurethane Products which has operations in Retford and Coventry. PPL has around 90 employees and around 90 million SEK annual sales.

Real Estate company Kungsleden has acquired four properties in Skara for 71 million Swedish Kronor. The property yield is 8.2%. Wihlborgs, Another player in the sector, will construct a building for a media cluster in Västra Hamnen district on land that Wihlborgs acquired last year. The company CEO Anders Jarl said the company is investing 193 million and expects a 7% direct return.

Stora Enso is reversing an earlier impairment charge of 238 million Euro on Q4. Outokumpu took back some recent losses with a 5% gain after announcing it will raise prices. Finnair found the time and money for a big rebranding project involving painting of the entire fleet, website, clothing etc. The company believes the new less blue more white identity will appeal to Asian customers.

Veidekke signed a contract with Avontor to build new headquarters for Statnett in Oslo. The value of the turnkey contract is 380 million NOK. Kongsberg Gruppen Kongsberg Satellite Services won the ground station provider honours from Digital Globe. The value of the contract is 650 million NOK with options up to around 1.1 billion.

Schibsted takes a 37.5% ownership stake in Letsdeal.se, a Groupon type online site. Cencorp received an order for six Odd-Form Assembly machines in renewable energy field. The order is the second one from this particular customer and is worth 1.2 million Euro. Simtronics advanced over 5% after announsing it will deliver gas analyzers and gad detectors for submarines via its French subsidiary for naval defence company DCNS.

Helsinki District Court ruled in the trial trial relating to share purchases made by LSO Osuuskunta in 2006 (see 01.11.2010). The court found the members of the Board of Directors of LSO Osuuskunta at the time guilty of negligent abuse of insider information and not guilty of aggravated abuse of insider information, HK Scan said in its stock market release. Three of those found guilty are current members of HKScan Corporation’s Board of Directors. They received a fine and many of those found guilty have already said they will appeal. Okmetic’s stock exchange release said that the current President of Okmetic’s Board OF Directors (and former CEO of HK Scan) Kai Seikku was acquitted of charges of aggravated abuse of insider information.