Company News in Brief

Qantas flights to Joburg disrupted after warning about SpaceX rocketAustralian carrier Qantas said it had delayed flights to Johannesburg in recent weeks on warnings issued by the US government about the re-entry of SpaceX rockets in the South Indian Ocean. A South African Airways (SAA) spokesperson said its flights to Perth were not affected.Ben Holland, head of Qantas' operations centre, said several flights between Johannesburg and Sydney had been delayed by one to six hours in recent weeks due to rocket re-entry warnings."Over the past few weeks, we've had to delay several flights between Johannesburg and Sydney due to advice received from the US government regarding the re-entry of SpaceX rockets over an extensive area of the Southern Indian Ocean."While we try to make any changes to our schedule in advance, the timing of recent launches has moved around at late notice, which has meant we've had to delay some flights just prior to departure. Our teams notify customers of changes to their flight as soon as we know it will be impacted," Holland said in a statement sent to News24 on Tuesday.Elon Musk's SpaceX is an aerospace company that frequently launches rockets out of Earth's atmosphere. The company launched rockets to put satellites into orbit and to experiment with rockets that could one day be used to explore space. Holland said that Qantas is in contact with SpaceX to try to get the company to refine the area and time windows when it will perform rocket re-entries. Incidentally, Russian authorities opened a facility in the North West in 2023 to detect space debris and protect valuable space infrastructure, such as the International Space Station. -FIN24Barrick confirms suspension of Mali operations, seizure of goldCanada's Barrick Gold on Tuesday confirmed it had suspended operations in Mali and that the government had moved gold stock from the miner's Loulo-Gounkoto site to a bank.Reuters reported on Monday that the authorities had seized gold worth $245 million in an escalation of their long-running dispute with the company."As a result, Barrick has regrettably initiated the temporary suspension of operations while it continues to work towards a resolution," it said in a statement.Barrick did not say what amount of gold had been seized.Malian officials did not reply to requests for immediate comment.-REUTERSUS lawmakers urge Biden to extend TikTok January 19 ban deadlineTwo Democratic lawmakers on Monday urged Congress and President Joe Biden to extend a Jan. 19 deadline for China-based ByteDance to sell the U.S. assets of TikTok or face a U.S. ban.The Supreme Court held arguments Friday on Tiktok and ByteDance's challenge to the law. A lawyer for the companies, Noel Francisco, said it would be impossible to complete a sale by next week's deadline.He said if banned, the the short video app used by 170 million Americans would quickly go dark and "essentially the platform shuts down."Biden could extend the deadline by 90 days if he certifies ByteDance is making substantial progress toward a divestiture but it is unlikely ByteDance could meet that standard.Senator Edward Markey said he planned to introduce legislation to delay the deadline by which ByteDance must sell TikTok or face a ban by an additional 270 days."A ban would dismantle a one-of-a-kind informational and cultural ecosystem, silencing millions in the process," Markey said Monday."A TikTok ban would impose serious consequences on millions of Americans who depend on the app for social connections and their economic livelihood. We cannot allow that to happen."President-elect Donald Trump has asked the court to delay implementation of the law, arguing he should have time after taking office on Jan. 20 to pursue a "political resolution" to the issue.Representative Ro Khanna, a Democrat, on Monday urged Biden and Trump "to put a pause on this ban so 170 million Americans don't lose their free speech. Millions of Americans' livelihood will be ended if this ban takes place."Countries negotiating a global treaty to curb plastic pollution failed to reach agreement on Monday.If the court does not block the law by Sunday, new downloads of TikTok on Apple or Google app stores would be banned but existing users could continue to access the app for some period. Services would degrade and eventually stop working as companies will be barred from providing support.The White House did not immediately comment.-REUTERS S&P lowers Nissan's outlook to negative, affirms BB+ ratingsS&P Global Ratings revised Nissan Motor's outlook to negative from stable and affirmed its BB+ rating, as it expected it would take the Japanese automaker longer to improve its business performance."The negative outlook reflects our view that the company's creditworthiness will continue to deteriorate if profitability does not improve and positive free cash flow is not secured," S&P said in a statement.Nissan has increased sales incentives in a bid to correct high inventory levels, which have risen due to a slowdown in car sales in North America, the company's main market, S&P said.-REUTERS Pfizer going 'all in' on obesity drug development, CEO Bourla saysU.S. drugmaker Pfizer is going "all in" to develop its experimental obesity drug and has been recruiting more experts in that area, Chief Executive Officer Albert Bourla said at the JPMorgan Healthcare Conference on Monday.Bourla said the experts were helping Pfizer "make better and more sound decisions," and the company could start a late-stage study of its drug, danuglipron, in the second half of this year.Pfizer is testing multiple doses of once-a-day version of its weight-loss pill, after scrapping development of a twice-daily version of the drug in late 2023."At this point, I'm very cautious with danu," Bourla said at the ongoing industry conference in San Francisco, adding that after a lot of experiments Pfizer expects to have data from dose-testing studies "in a few months."Through the drug, Pfizer aims to offer patients a more convenient alternative to injectable drugs — Eli Lilly's, Zepbound and Novo Nordisk's — that currently dominate the weight-loss treatment market.Lilly and Novo are also developing their own oral treatments. Some analysts expect the market for these drugs to be worth more than $150 billion in annual sales by the early 2030s."We expect that we'll have a competitive profile," Bourla said, adding that Pfizer's pill could be the second to market after Eli Lilly's if the company is able to meet its timeline.Acquiring an injectable GLP-1 drug would not be in Pfizer's interest because "probably it's a little bit too late," Bourla said, referring to Wegovy and Zepbound's class of treatments that target the receptors for an appetite- and blood sugar-reducing hormone called GLP-1.-REUTERS Lindt sees further growth in 2025 as it hikes prices to combat cocoa costsLindt & Spruengli lifted 2024 margin estimate and forecast further sales growth for 2025 on Tuesday, after reporting 7.8% organic growth for last year in a sign that price hikes have not deterred shoppers from splurging on chocolates.The Swiss chocolate maker, which has been hiking its selling prices to pass record-high cocoa costs on to customers, said it expected to raise them further in 2025."Very robust sales growth, demonstrating Lindt's pricing power, which led to further market share gains," Vontobel analyst Jean Philippe Bertschy said.With cocoa prices having nearly tripled over 2024, analysts are expecting the chocolate market to face an unprecedented cost headwind this year.Cocoa prices rose by almost 180% last year, a second successive yearly increase after 61% growth in 2023."We believe that Lindt is very well positioned to navigate through 2025, which will be a very challenging year for the chocolate industry," Bertschy said.The maker of Lindor chocolate balls said its sales were 5.47 billion Swiss francs ($5.97 billion) in 2024, broadly in line with market expectations. LSEG's IBES data showed an average analysts' forecast of 5.49 billion francs while AWP consensus stood at 5.46 billion francs.The company expects its annual operating profit margin to be at least 16.0%, the top of its earlier forecast range.For 2025, it sees organic sales growth of between 7% and 9% and a further improvement of 20–40 basis points in the operating profit margin."Overall, the 2024 delivery and 2025 outlook are likely to reassure and help the shares today," J.P.Morgan analysts said in a research note.Lindt's shares rose 2.3% in early trading.-REUTERS

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