Business outlook

Sulzer bosses Fred Kindle (left) and Leo Vannotti will be on the defensive at this week's AGM Keystone Archive

Dealers will no doubt be keen to get back to their desks after the long Easter weekend. The major focus will be on InCentive's takeover attempt of Sulzer ahead of the engineering technology group's annual general meeting on Thursday.

The battle for Sulzer has intensified since InCentive Capital, which is owned by financier Réné Braginsky, increased its offer for Sulzer’s industrial operations by SFr20 to SFr430 per share.

Sulzer said the SFr4 billion ($2.35 billion) bid came nowhere near the company’s real value.

InCentive, which accuses Sulzer of failing to deliver an adequate return to shareholders, will be asking investors at Thursday’s meeting to replace Sulzer’s current set of directors with InCentive’s men. This would effectively give InCentive control of the company before the result of the bid attempt had come through.

First quarter results begin to trickle through this week with numbers expected from Europe’s second biggest drugs group, Novartis, on Thursday.

Novartis has attracted a lot of attention because of its strong pharmaceutical pipeline, with the Basel based-group looking forward to the launch of a number of expected blockbuster drugs in the coming months.

Also reporting first-quarter results on Thursday will be one of Novartis’s neighbours, chemical company Clariant. The company has already announced that it plans to sell several major businesses this year to focus on core speciality chemicals while also strengthening its finances.

Clariant’s results were put under pressure last year by the cost of its acquisition of Britain’s BTP chemicals group. So far this year business has been sluggish for the group, mainly due to the slowdown in the automotive industry.

However, Clariant’s next chief executive Reinhard Handte has already said he expects the group to boost sales, operating profit and operating margins over the year as a whole. Handte will takeover as chief executive in May.

by Tom O’Brien