Moody’s latest downgrade from Warrington Council will have been noticed by Matt Moulding, the perennially tanned founder of protein shake supplier THG.
The Labour-run authority has debts of £1.8 billion – ten times its annual income.
It sought to offset government-imposed cuts by investing in local projects that promised high returns, the largest of which was a business park in Manchester that housed the headquarters of THG, which is owned by Molding.
Investigation: Moody’s latest downgrade of Warrington Council will have been spotted by Matt Molding (pictured)
The downgrade of Warrington’s rating to the credit agency found that the council’s ‘major capital programme’ had led to ‘rapid debt growth’, which was not helped by the slump in commercial property.
Talks to sell the Manchester site collapsed in September despite the council approving a change to the terms of the £128m loan.
Shaky foundations
Last month we reported on the closure of the London-based International Property Securities Exchange with just three listed companies.
Now two of them, Mailbox REIT and M7 Regional E-Warehouse REIT, have said they will no longer qualify as real estate investment trusts under the new rules next year.
And Mailbox, which owns a building in Birmingham, said the company is still in default on its loan and may need to raise more money. Talk about shaky foundations.
Will GSK’s results surpass Haleon?
GSK will report its third-quarter results on Wednesday after a raft of good news for the FTSE 100 company, including positive clinical data for a new vaccine and a resolution to more legal issues surrounding former heartburn drug Zantac in the US.
But the pharmaceutical giant will have to do a particularly good job to surpass Haleon, the maker of Panadol and Sensodyne toothpaste, which was spun out of GlaxoSmithKline last year.
Haleon delivers its quarterly update a day after GSK, and in the past 12 months Haleon shares are up 19 percent, versus 3.3 percent for GSK.
But any rivalry is likely to be benign in nature, as GSK still owns 8 percent of the company.
What’s good for the goose is also good for the goose, it seems.
Roche hopes to avoid buyer’s remorse
The pharmaceutical sector was in turmoil last week when Swiss giant Roche bought Telavant, maker of a drug for intestinal diseases, for a whopping £5.9 billion from Roivant Sciences and Pfizer.
Many noted that Roivant was founded by Vivek Ramaswamy, who is running to replace Joe Biden as president.
Roche may want to keep an eye on his investment, given the anti-woke businessman’s track record.
In 2017, he was criticized for events at Axovant, another Roivant company, which soared in its Wall Street debut on the promise of treating Alzheimer’s disease but then crashed when the drug flopped in a clinical trial .
Roche will hope to avoid buyer’s remorse.
Employee: Patrick Tooher