Business Live: Novo Nordisk raises its forecasts fuelled by high demand for weight loss drugs
the top business stories live from the Sky News City Studio Europe’s biggest company Novo Nordisk raises its forast fueled by high demand for its weight loss and diabetes drugs Goldman Sach is to remove the bonus cap for its London staff opening the door for multi-million pound payouts for top performers and Pandora the world’s leading Jeweler report sparkling figures I’ll speak to the chief executive [Music] good afternoon this is business live with me Ian King we start today with news of Europe’s biggest company Novo Nordisk which is once again raising sales and profits forast for the year that reflected surging demand for its anti-diabetes and weight loss drugs as empik and wovi sales of wovi doubled in the quarter with 25,000 Americans starting on the brand every week during the quarter the Danish company recently bought the US drug manufacturer catalant in order to step up production for its Blockbuster drugs well noo nordes now expects its sales growth to rise this year by between 19 and 27% up from the 18 to 26% that it was previously forecasting the company expects profits to grow by between 22 and 30% this year up from the 21 to 29% it was forecasting in January the company was reporting a net profit of 25.4 billion Danish Crona for the first three months of the year that’s 2.91 billion which was up 28% on the same period last year I’ve been getting analysis from Robert oler he’s Chief investment officer at close Brothers Asset Management this stock just keeps on surprising in terms of expectations and clearly it’s the whole insulin plus um the gop1 the weight loss drugs as well um it’s just the Sweet Spot really of everything about an aging demographic an aging population and it’s that that’s continually driving the numbers some of the statistics within the release are amazing 25,000 Americans every week are signing up to a the weight loss treatment that’s right and it’s you know obesity is the new modern Scourge and um Novo Nordisk is leading in that together with some of the US farmer companies and there’s no real I mean we’re just in the Foothills really because you’ve also got Emerging Markets you’ve got China so you know that’s what the Market’s pricing in that’s why it’s been such an astounding share price performer and if you want more on that story you can go to the digital platforms from Sky new news now to my thoughts on the Nova doors nordisk’s trading update today do have a look at that if you can now demand for gold has hit its best start to a year since 2016 it emerged today the world gold Council the industry body said total gold demand in the three months to the end of March Rose by 3% year- on-ear to 1238 tons that was the strongest first quarter for eight years well part of that was due to heavy buying by central banks and a strong demand from Chinese buyers for gold bars and coins the price of gold hit record highs during in the quarter on a number of occasions I’ve been speaking with John Reed he’s Chief Market strategist at the world gold Council and I began by asking him which central banks were investing heavily in Gold I mean the biggest Central Bank buying we saw was from China uh there were other central banks as well uh that turned up on that list so Poland um India Singapore Turkey um but the Chinese buying was the largest join the quarter worth noting that so-called overthe counter buying OTC buying actually fell during the quar why do you think that was well OTC buying is a is always a difficult um line item within our supply demand balance because it to a large extent it’s a residual we measure everything we can on the demand side and and make you know measurements and estimates on the supply side the difference is OTC buying I think the fact that it remains a strong uh number is indicative of of the continuation of the OTC buying we’ve seen over the last couple of years I wouldn’t pay too much attention to the small uh changes that can happen quarter to quarter okay wait against that demand from China was very very robust why do you think that’s it well I think there there’s a number of reasons why we’re seeing demand from China I mean part of it is the Central Bank buying we noted which has probably taken place for for diversification reasons China doesn’t have a huge proportion of its foreign exchange reserves in Gold only at about four and a bit percent com compared to double digit for many of the developed economies so I think that’s quite uh logical and they’ve been buying now for I think 17 months in a row and look likely to continue to do so China’s always the or almost always the biggest gold market in terms of consumer demand as well um but the strength that we saw in the first quarter uh I think was quite remarkable particularly the pickup in investment in physical gold so particularly the gold bars and to a lesser extent coins and I think what’s driving that is the lack of uh investable assets or desirable investable Assets in China at the moment China’s got a very high savings rate and and a lot of that saving has gone into real estate historically um obviously the property Market is uh been declining now for some time the equity Market’s weak and there’s perhaps concern about U the outlook for the rimby as well so that makes gold a really good choice for for Chinese investors and they’ve recognized that in this quarter I was very interested to see that uh recycled gold supplies were up 12% is it possible to sort of drill down into that and know where this is coming from well it’s generally coming from the countries that consume the most gold and have the largest stocks of gold um we are seeing large increases particularly uh coming through in India um and China as well but the recycling Market is quite complex in some cases it’s people cashing in their old gold jewelry um because of high prices uh in India one of the things that happens there is that people take their their their gold jewelry in and exchange it for new jewelry you often need to buy um jewelry in India for various events and weddings Etc so when the price is high that does encourage the uh the the recycling of old jewelry into new in the case of china it’s often a consequence of um retailers changing out their stock they introduce a new line or a new type of gold jewelry if it doesn’t sell particularly well they’ll scrap it all recycle it and and make something different instead so um it is a function of the higher price the fact that it was up 12% year on year in the first quarter uh is a big jump but it is at a much lower level than we saw for example during the global financial crisis um when total recycling uh gold Supply was much much higher and part of that’s because it’s only been what 15 years since the global financial crisis and the stock of old unwanted inherited jewelry hasn’t really had the chance to build up to the same degree that it did uh in the sort of 30 years before the GFC now mind production was up 4% during the quarter are you starting to see evidence that higher prices is acting as a spur of production only at the margin um there are some talk of mining companies being able to access lower grade material which is now profitable but in general the reaction to these all-time high prices from the mining companies will be evident in 5 to 10 years time because that’s the sort of lead time that you need to build a new mine what what about uh demand for jewelry would you expect to see that tail off as if prices remain at these kind of levels typically what you see is when the gold price goes up quickly is that jewelry demand does contract and one of the interesting things about the gold market in the last couple of years is that jewelry demand has been strong and almost unchanged year on year with the surge that we’ve seen the price in the beginning of the second quarter though we are hearing reports about buyers standing back from the market a bit um so if we continue to see these these record or near record prices that we’re seeing at the moment I think it will have some effect but in in general I think the big story on jewelry is the fact that it stood up so well despite the high prices some other business news door is for you now Goldman Sachs is removing the cap on bonuses for its London base staff opening the door for it to resume multi-million pound payouts to its best performing Traders and dealmakers Sky City editor Mark kman reports that removing the cap means several hundred UK based gold staff will now be eligible for variable pay which insiders claim could be worth up to 25 times their base salaries the existing pay ratio was imposed under European Union rules which the government recently scrapped shell has reported a year-on-year drop in profits for the first three months of 2024 due to lower natural gas prices adjusted earnings came down from $9.6 billion in the first three months of last year to 7.7 billion this year however that was better than expected and shares of shell have risen by 2 and a half% with sentiment also Boy by news that the company plans to buy back $3.5 billion doar worth of its shares the performance was also better than the $7.3 billion that shell reported for the final three months of last year reflecting lower costs and higher margins in chemicals and energy trading shares of standard charted jumped by nearly 7% earlier today after the footsy 100 Bank reported better than expected profits for the first three months of the year the lender whose operations are focused on Asia and Africa reported a pre-tax profit of 1.91 billion dollar for the quarter which was up 6% on the same period last year well that was driven by a stronger performance in trading and also higher profits in Investment Banking and wealth management while it also saw an increase in the spread between what it charges borrowers and pays depositors the world’s biggest jewelry producer said today that sales will be better than they expected this year Pandora was reporting an operating profit for the first three months of the year of 1 a half billion Danish Crona that’s 172 million which was up 20 % on the same period last year and better than the market had been expecting the shares have risen by 6% in Copenhagen well earlier on I expector Pandora’s chief executive Alexander laic who took me through the figures we have online Touch Above 20% growth uh you have our physical retail which is around 78 uh and then you have our wholesale Partners which is around one so so if you take that one and the Seven then that’s kind of the physical part versus the to 20 OD on E business you’ve continued to open Outlets during the quarter you now have 700 worldwide do you have a Target in mind that you might ultimately be aiming for our network is roughly 7,000 points of sales of which roughly 3,000 is what we label as uh concept stores which is where we make the most of the business uh in the strategy period that goes until end of 26 we’ve guided for adding net four to five 00 more uh stores uh now that doesn’t say that we’re not going to continue after that point but that’s kind of what we’ve what we guided the market for so we still have a lot of uh space opportunities globally obviously the price of gold hit a record level several times during the quarter are you seeing that have any impact on jewelry demand well what happens when the gold goes then the silver price kind of uh follows a little bit in general now that has a lag effect on on our pricing if if you may or cost of cost of goods but when it comes to demand um on on when gold goes up it’s probably like in our supply chain it takes at least 12 months before you can kind of see that passing through the whole value chain so so there’s no immediate reaction when kind of the the day price if you may goes up or down on on those precious metals now all of the gold and silver you sell is now fully recycled do you get credit from customer cust for that is that a big influence when customers are making buying decisions I mean first of all um at the end of 23 we uh reverted to only buy uh recycled uh silver in particular recycled gold we have been at 100% for a while now before this actually runs through the whole inventory of finished products will’ll be into the second half of 24 so there is no point yet to go and speak to a customer base that is all recycled because we still have a part of the assortment that is not 100% recycled yet so so that conversation maybe happens next year when when we’re completely out of it through the entire value chain now obviously you’ve set yourself a key strategy of changing perception so you’ll regarded as a full jewelry brand rather than just as a charm brand how do you judge progress on that front well so if you look at our business it’s kind of we have the the origins of the brand if you may which is the charms and and um bracelet business uh and then you can look at if the overall business grows and then you can kind of look at the other parts that are not choms and bracelet the pace of growth that you can uh get there so the first point is obviously to for the whole thing to go up and then you have to look at the different segments and what we see uh in the last uh you know year or so uh and at an accelerating Paces we see that the growth rates on what we call fuel with more they’re uh growing at a very high clip so if you now take quarter one as an example our moments business was growing at 5% the fuel with more and there’s several collections that sit within that they were growing at 34% so and and of course the total business is growing so so we see the incrementality come through in this way and then therefore you can kind of Judge and say it looks like consumers are changing their views on on what Pandora can offer I know I’ve asked you this before but I’m always interested to hear what you have to say on it but how important now is social media in terms of reaching consumers well I mean social media uh like any other media platform is um you know if you use it well can be an creative way of reaching customers that are difficult to reach in other places uh it’s not a baseline uh platform uh but it’s certainly nice add-on where you can kind of uh reach certain age brackets typically if you take a Tik Tok for instance they will they will reach deep into a younger audience versus maybe a traditional TV channel but you need to have the kind of whole mix uh sorted out somehow give me an update if you would please on lab grown diamonds and the sort of reaction that you’re getting to that right now currently we’re at doubling uh that business versus year ago so it grew 87% in the quarter all bait from a from a a large large rather small base I mean we’re a new entrance into the diamond business overall so this is going to take a bit of time um um but but what we’re seeing is uh quite quite a positive reaction in particular from younger audiences they’re very very open to this part of this is obviously that the value equation is more favorable uh some people are also paying more attention let’s say to the sustainability aspect of of buying this type of gemstone um and and I think there’s a general movement in in the diamond industry more towards a lab grown Diamond so not just for Pandora but in in general we can see that it’s kind of Shifting in favor of of this type of solution that was alexand laic from Pandora speaking to me earlier and he mentioned by the way that in their shops 56% of the customers are men well still to come here on business live we’ll have a look at how the markets have done today don’t go away [Music] [Music] [Music] for [Music] play Sky News from the Sky News Center at 7 now that you’re up to date we can go into a bit more detail things can change incredibly quickly taken by surprise have you ever known A Moment Like This in British politics before yes cheers we’ll start with breaking news let’s get the latest on the ground so by the end we’ll hopefully all understand what’s going on in the world just that looking better [Music] [Music] if you forgot your pajamas Emirates has got you covered e [Music] [Music] it’s like slight [Music] better well European stocks have finished largely to the downside on a busy news day as you can see only the ibck in Madrid finishing in positive territory it’s been a really busy company news day among those reporting today include the Danish container shipping giant MK that’s off 5% well ing the biggest bank in the Netherlands is up 7% after its results beat expectations meanwhile the Spanish lender sabadel is Up 3 and 3/4% that’s on confirmation it’s received a takeover proposal from its large Ral BBVA a story first broken by my colleague Mark kinman we’re here in London 5100 has finished up nearly 2third of 1% of that 51 Point gain or so 18 of that alone has come from Shell on the back of its results elsewhere the leading percentage gainer in the foots is standard ch started that’s risen by look at that 8 and 3/4% at the close while Smurf at Kappa the packaging group that’s finished up 5 and 3/4% also on the back of a trading update to the downside will Melrose the aircraft Engineering Group that updated the market on its latest trade today failed to uh light any fires that one off nearly 3% over on Wall Street well stocks have rallied there was a selloff last night triggered by hints from the FED chairman Jay poell that us interest rates will remain at elevated levels for longer but as you see stocks opening to The Upside today among the features well apple is ahead by just under 1 and a half% right now it’s got results out after the closing bell tonight while the chip Supply Qualcomm is up 9% that’s after its cly results beat expectations to the downside pelaton is down nearly 12% and that is on news that its chief executive Barry McCarthy is stepping down rather unexpectedly that one over on the foreign exchange markets well it’s a firm day for the dollars you might expect Sterling off nearly 5th 1% against the green back it’s off a 10th 1% against the Euro Euro single currency are slightly lower against the dollar as for the oil price well that has snapped out of its three-day losing run but it remains pretty close to its lowest level since the second week in March barel Brent crude will currently cost you $83 58 a barrel that’s off just under up just under F 1% joining me this afternoon it’s Lucy CS she’s investment director of course at jmf Lucy good to see you today I suppose we should start with the FED shouldn’t we because it was a fairly hawkish kind of statement from J pal wasn’t it yes I mean it was I mean markets are still very real reactive to various data points economic employment that’s tomorrow um and inflation now what Powell admits is that they haven’t yet beaten inflation but last year in the last quarter of last year we’d expect seven cuts from the FED then we moved that to maybe two cuts and now a couple of weeks ago we then thought oh there’s a possibility of a rate hike but what he did say was that the expectation is that the next move will be a rate cut but where we’ve now moved from a cut in September we’re looking at November but so so kicking the can down the road but markets have really responded to this well of course and November US presidential election I mean dare the FED move that close to an election well I think Biden would have W wanted one sooner but you know the central banks have to remain independent um for as long for foreseeable future at least so hopefully uh we’ll get the cuts that the markets really want um but the US economy is really resilient we’ve seen oecd numbers coming out today uh slightly lifting global EIC numbers UK downgraded so maybe the bank of England May well have to come sooner than than the than the fed and all of this very very we should L we forget very very positive for the dollar yeah exactly but and of course Blen we’ve got this sort of battle with the Yen so we’ve seen that really really weak and there’s there’s rumor that the uh Ministry of Finance in Japan is um is uh intervening yes indeed but no confirmation yeah now after the close tonight as I mentioned we get Apple’s results what are you looking out for well we’re going in there with really low expectations the share price is down about 11% in the year today in context of the NASDAQ is up nearly four so you it’s quite a big disparity between the two and I think really uh we’re going to see iPhone sales down we’ve got a lot more competition coming from China and their own hands exactly so we’re going in there very unusually with this low expectation so I think if the numbers come in with revenues at I think we’re expecting 90.4 billion if they come in anywhere near that that’s good but what really hope to see is a better Outlook and apple actually is not at the Forefront in in investors’s mind in AI you know you’ve got the alphabets Amazon Microsoft Nvidia that’s all AI Apple will be doing something but we just don’t know what so let’s hope we hear something that’s always something of Interest isn’t it now close to to home of course we got results today from smurfit Kappa a company we should say sadly off to the us fairly soon yeah it is westrock so one of the updates today westrock merger it’s progressing it’s on time that’s going to be completed early July but what’s really good for this uh this this industry is that they’re seeing industry Trends are much more positive the longterm outlook is more positive so you’ve seen also the share price of DS Smith lift as well um so it’s good to see but you know the shares are smurfit Kappa are trading at a massive discount to its USS us peers you know sort of 25% so it’ll be interesting to see what happens to the share price on its merger with West Rock okay Lucy got to leave it there I’m afraid good to see you ever thank you thank you that’s it from me for this afternoon uh there are no business programs Tom why I’m afraid because of our local election coverage I’ll be back on the Tuesday after the bank holiday at half 11 hope very much to see you then have a great weekend and coming up next it’s Mark Austin with the NewsHour cheerio [Music]
Join Ian King as Europe’s biggest company Novo Nordisk raises its forecasts fuelled by high demand for its weight loss and diabetes drugs.
Plus, Goldman Sachs is removing a cap on bonuses for London-based staff, paving the way for it to resume making multimillion pound payouts to its best-performing traders and dealmakers.
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