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Our briefing for Thursday, January 20, 2022:
Jan 20, 2022 4:32:04 PM
- United States President Joe Biden said the country is on track to meet the challenges arising from the pandemic despite rising inflation and staunch opposition to his Build Back Better platform from Republicans. In an interview on Wednesday the president said that he didn’t “overpromise” during his election campaign last year and added that his work is not done. "Should we have done more testing earlier? Yes," the president conceded, but remained confident that the country "probably outperformed what anybody thought would happen.” Roughly four-fifths of the country has received at least one shot of a Covid-19 vaccine, and while the virus is still causing severe disruptions to everyday life, Biden claims he is still optimistic. "Some people may call what's happening now 'the new normal,'" he said. "I call it a job not yet finished. It will get better." Nearly 2000 people are dying from Covid-19 related illnesses a day in the United States, and Biden admitted that "after almost two years of physical, emotional and psychological impact of this pandemic, for many of us, it's been too much to bear."
- The first shipment of an oral antiviral pill is being sent across the country according to Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. Canada has purchased 1 million courses of the antiviral drug Paxlovid, however, Trudeau said that the drug is not a substitute for a Covid vaccine. In an interview, the prime minister said, "it's important to remember that this will be a powerful tool to continue to keep people from people getting extremely sick, but it needs to be used right.” The pill is intended to reduce the risk of hospitalization or death from Covid-19. Canadians are hoping that the country will reach its peak in new infections this month with Canada’s two most populated provinces, Quebec and Ontario, both recording lower hospitalization rates and the number of patients in intensive care units is slowly declining. Despite most businesses in Ontario being closed, Premier Doug Ford has said that the province can expect a “positive” announcement on restrictions later in the week.
- U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson said on Wednesday that scientists believe the Covid-19 cases have peaked in the country and will begin lifting restrictions next week. Masks will no longer be required in public places and vaccine passports for large events will be scrapped as cases throughout the country have begun to stabilize. While hospitals in the north of England are still seeing rising cases, much of the rest of the country has seen cases dropping. The government is no longer suggesting that Britons work from home and students in secondary schools will no longer be required to wear masks. “We will trust the judgment of the British people and no longer criminalize anyone who chooses not to wear [a mask],” Johnson said. The government recorded 108,069 new cases on Wednesday, which is less than half of what it was recording during the holiday season. Despite the ease in restrictions, anyone who has received a positive Covid test will still need to isolate for five days, but Johnson has said that too will be lifted in the coming weeks.
- Western Australia has decided to delay its February 5 reopening as Covid cases in the east of the country are still reaching their peak. The state – one of the last holdouts of a Covid-Zero policy – in December announced that they would eliminate all travel restrictions in February of this year. Premier Mark McGowan said in an interview late Thursday that opening the border could create problems and that he would prefer to wait until the state has a better understanding of the impact Omicron may have. “Allowing a wave of Omicron cases to fly straight into Perth from February 5, with no testing, no quarantine and no public health measures would cause a flood of disease across our state,” McGowan said. While the other Australian states have gradually reopened, Western Australia has kept its strict border restrictions, and its residents have been able to live without mask mandates. The Western Australian government has said that keeping the border closed will allow more time for residents to receive a booster shot before potentially exposing themselves to virus when the border reopens.
- The Merck & Co. anti-viral pill will be manufactured by over 30 generic drug-makers in Asia, Africa, and the Middle East thanks to an emergency UN-backed deal. The agreement will give poorer nations access to Merck’s anti-viral pill molnupiravir, to be used as a weapon to fight against the spread of Covid-19. The sharing of such a new patent is rare in the pharmaceutical sector, which normally goes to great lengths to protect such intellectual property. The deal negotiated between the UN-backed Medicines Patent Pool(MPP) and Merck will allow for a low-cost version of the pill to be manufactured as the pandemic continues. The U.S. based company will not receive any royalties from the distribution of the drug. The drug will be sent to 105 developing nations and will cost US$20 for a full course of 40 pills to be taken over 5 days. That price is compared to $700 per course that the United States agreed to for 1.7 million courses. An MPP spokesperson suggested that deliveries from manufacturers in some nations could start as early February.
Covid-19 – Due Diligence And Asset Management
Goldman Sachs, Citi Asking London Staff to Return to Office
Brief: Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and Citigroup Inc. are among the firms asking London staff to return to their desks, as finance firms start to push workers to return after the U.K. dropped its work-from-home guidance. Goldman employees are being asked to return in line with the government’s announcement on Wednesday, according to a person familiar with the matter. Citigroup has emailed its London staff telling them to come into the office at least three days a week. We are now free to gather in our offices, without restriction, where we are better able to generate the energy and collaborative spirit on which Citi thrives,” EMEA Chief Executive Officer David Livingstone and U.K. head James Bardrick said in an email to staff sent late Wednesday and seen by Bloomberg. Fidelity International CEO Anne Richards and Standard Chartered Plc Chairman Jose Vinals both said on Bloomberg Television Thursday that their firms are encouraging U.K. staff to return to its offices.
Wall Street traders are placing fresh bets on a post-Covid world
Brief: Evidence is piling up that traders are betting the coronavirus’s grip on the global economy is loosening for good — even as the spreading omicron variant ignites fresh supply-chain chaos and worries over the effectiveness of existing vaccines. A Wells Fargo basket of stocks that win in the great economic reopening has stormed back toward pre-pandemic levels versus a gauge of rate-sensitive tech companies. A rally in commodities has added to evidence that the investment and consumption cycle is rebounding. Meanwhile German bund yields have just turned positive as central banks around the world pare pandemic stimulus. “There’s growing optimism that we are nearing the end and we are seeing that reflected across the markets,” said Craig Erlam, senior market analyst at Oanda Corp. “Each market you look at there is a common theme of the recovery and the belief that it’s here to stay.”
Remote Working Surges as Criteria for More Jobseekers in U.K.
Brief: More jobseekers in Britain are looking to work remotely, a survey showed, indicating that the shift away from office work may outlast the pandemic. Indeed, a job search website, said 10% of its advertisements now offer remote work as an option and about 2.4% of all searches by potential candidates, up 10-fold from 2019. Britain had one of the biggest increases in remote working during the pandemic and in the share of vacancies offering it as an option, Indeed said, citing its own research and work by the OECD. Those posts were disproportionately concentrated in higher-paying, non-client facing roles. “We are settling into seemingly permanent ways of working,” Pawel Adrjan, head of EMEA research at Indeed. “Firms face intense competition when trying to hire staff. So offering remote working makes sense. It can be a powerful way to grab the attention of the sizable number of candidates.”
Carlyle Prepares to Raise Its Biggest-Ever European Buyout Fund
Brief: Carlyle Group Inc. is preparing to raise its biggest-ever European buyout fund, taking advantage of a rush of capital into private equity firms, people with knowledge of the matter said.The U.S. investment firm could aim to raise around 7.5 billion euros ($8.5 billion) for its Carlyle Europe Partners VI fund, one of the people said. It plans to start fundraising efforts later this year, the people said, asking not to be identified because the information is private.
Secretive hedge fund Renaissance Technologies' reportedly sees $15 billion in outflows despite double digit performance
Brief: Renaissance Technologies double-digit returns in 2021 weren't enough to prevent the nearly $15 billion in outflows it experienced over the past 14 months, according to a Bloomberg report. The quant-focused hedge fund, founded by Jim Simons and Howard Morgan in 1982, has turned into a more than $100 billion behemoth over the years thanks to the consistently jaw-dropping performance of its Medallion fund, which is only open to current and former employees of the company. The allure of Renaissance's Medallion fund has helped drive investors to the three hedge fund strategies it makes available to the public. But the diverging returns between the private and public funds has led to consistent outflows over the past year.
