Stockwatch: Earnings muted by currencies push big pharma into acquisitions
This article was originally published in Scrip
Executive Summary
With the recent distractions of the annual JP Morgan Healthcare conference, Shire's acquisition of NPS Pharmaceuticals (scripintelligence.com, 12 January 2015) and the many fundraisings vying for investors' attention, you could have been forgiven for not realising that the full-year 2014 earnings season is already well under way (scripintelligence.com, 23 January 2015). With events like those, something as prosaic and anodyne as profitability has probably taken a back seat in investors' minds. However, reporting season may be about to rudely remind them that earnings and M&A are linked to each other as well as to last and this years' hot button issues of tax inversions and currency translations, respectively.