BGN Entrepreneur

The US drug company–Abbott Labs agreed to a $1.6bn settlement with the US Department of Justice over illegal marketing of the drug–Depakote, which is used to treat bipolar disorder. The settlement marks the end of a four-year investigation into Abbott’s selling of Depakote and represents one of the largest consumer protection settlements that involves a drug company.
According to the justice department, it is said that penalties are the second largest ever for a drug company, eclipsed only by $2.3bn fine imposed on Pfizer in the year of 2009 for promoting uses of four of its drugs illegally.

The German company–Deutsche Post, which pulled out of the US market in late 2008, is looking to expand “significantly” its US hub in Cincinnati, Ohio, in order to profit from strong customer demand for international express-mail services offered by its logistics divisionof DHL.
The company singled out volume and revenue growth in the Americas and Asia as the key drivers for a strong first-quarter for DHL Express, which is the fastest growing of its four business units.

If you’ve been following recent news then you’ll have noticed that when it comes to the housing market every paper in the country seems to be reporting further doom and gloom. Reading recent articles that have covered the rate cuts by several banks, the continued fall in housing prices for the fifth straight quarter across many areas of the country and the complaints about the housing market and house prices generally you’d be forgiven for thinking that things are going from bad to worse. It is clear that the housing market has suffered heavily in the last year and that the situation at present doesn’t make property investments overly tempting.
However I think this doom and gloom attitude is largely down to media pandering and to many people taking the dimmest view possible of the housing markets. The figures of course don’t lie but they certainly can be misleading. One report in a top newspaper claimed that the recent rates cuts were simply “too little too late” for the flailing house market while others have claimed the rates cut is simply too modest to have any real effect. However, the rates cuts and the changes being implemented haven’t fully come into effect and actually will make it a lot more viable for many people to buy.
Firstly, while many areas of the country are seeing house prices fall many are not. A recent article from ABC news covered the housing market in Perth and demonstrated that prices have risen for the second month in a row to a median of $467,000. While this is coming off the back of seven straight months of decline, as the article pointed out, it is still a start and symptom of recovery. Things may not be recovering across the board but perhaps the situation in Perth is an indication of things to come. As one area begins to pick up we can look at the reasons why and see where likely growth will occur throughout the country. A REIWA survey found a 5% increase in rental prices in the last quarter with a total increase of around 12 per cent for the last year.
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Asian markets on fears that the euro zone need to rein in cost-cutting measures that may be the key to solving some of the region see debt crisis plunged. It is the election of French President Francois Hollande as and parliamentary elections in Greece.

The Japanese Nikkei 225 index fell by 2.5%, South Korea’s Kospi shed 1.6% and Hong Kong’s Hang Seng fell 2%. Mr. Hollande said he wanted to concentrate on the European economies to growth instead of austerity measures to reduce debt. The fear of investors is that the newly elected governments in both countries, the issues in a bid to promote the growth increase. That could see the rising debt, especially in Greece, once again triggering concerns that the economies of the region be able to resolve the current debt crisis.

Investors on whether the euro zone are to survive the financial year are affected compact,” Arjuna Mahanedran of HSBC Private Bank, told the BBC. The key to solving the region’s debt crisis. The euro also fell to a three-month low against the dollar in Asian trading.

France’s biggest telephone company on all measures–France Telecom has suffered a decline of 8% in operating profit and a fall in sales in the first quarter of 2012, largely due to the launch of an ultra-low-cost mobile phone rival in its domestic market.
According to France Telecom, it is said that earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortization fell to €3.43bn in the first three months of the year, compared with €3.73bn in the same period in 2011.
Currently, the results are being closely watched by the analysts and investors to assess the impact of the launch of Free Mobile.

Metro, is the world’s fourth-largest by sales, following Walmart, Carrefour and Tesco.
Recently, the German retail group just announced a lossmaking start to the year and said that the company was cutting back on its capital spending, which highlights the challenges facing some of the largest retail groups within the Europe Austerity.
After the sales of Metro rose by 2.2% in first three month to March 31st, the retail group stuck to forecasts of higher revenues in this year. It also keeps its expecation that full-year underlying earnings would be about 2011’s level of €2.37bn.

Europe’s largest airline by revenue–Lufthansa unveiled its plans to cut 3500 jobs as the company reported a worse than expected operating loss of €381m in the first three month to March 31th of this year.
The analysts had been expecting a loss of €273m for the first quarter. However, they were reassured by how the German airline stuck to its previous earnings guidance for 2012.
According to Lufthansa, it was indicated that the economic uncertainty made it hard to predict demand for its services, but added the industry was showing restraint on seating capacity growth, meaning that the airlines could manage ticket pricing better.