Company news in brief

SA’s Biovac to start making Pfizer-BioNTech

South Africa's Biovac Institute will start making Pfizer-BioNTech's Covid-19 vaccine early next year after receiving the drug substance from Europe, a Pfizer executive said on Monday.

Biovac's "fill and finish" deal with Pfizer, announced in July, will make it one of the few companies processing Covid-19 shots in Africa, where many countries have struggled to access sufficient doses during the pandemic.

"We expect that the Cape Town facility will be incorporated into our supply chain by the end of this year," Patrick van der Loo, Pfizer regional president for Africa and the Middle East, told a conference in Kigali on vaccine manufacturing in Africa.

"Biovac will obtain the drug substance from facilities in Europe and manufacturing of finished doses will commence early in 2022," he said, appearing by video link.

Biovac's deal with Pfizer covers the final stages of manufacturing, where the vaccine is processed and put into vials, but does not represent a transfer of the intellectual property underpinning the vaccine. - Reuters

Google, Meta dominate global advertising growth

The global advertising industry will notch higher growth this year than previously expected and is likely to continue its streak in 2022 as brands are relying more heavily on search engine and social-media companies such as Alphabet Inc's Google and Meta Platforms Inc to reach customers during the pandemic, according to two ad industry forecasts.

Brands have continued to advertise online and promote ecommerce as in-store shopping has been slow to return due to the ongoing pandemic, said Jonathan Barnard, director of global intelligence at advertising firm Zenith.

New businesses formed during the pandemic needed to advertise to find customers, while others likely maintained ad spending to stay in front of consumers' minds, said Brian Wieser, global president of business intelligence at ad agency GroupM.

GroupM forecast global ad spending to grow 22.5% in 2021 from the previous year, while Zenith estimated growth of 15.6%. Both estimates were revised up from previous expectations.

Global ad spending is expected to grow by about 9% in 2022, according to the reports. - Reuters

Qantas sees huge domestic demand

Qantas Airways Ltd expects to reach more than 115% of pre-Covid domestic capacity levels by April as Australian state borders open, chief executive Alan Joyce said yesterday.

"Domestically we are seeing huge demand when borders open," he said at a CAPA Centre for aviation event. "We have seen a surge in 24 hours in the Queensland market alone."

Queensland on Monday brought forward the opening of its domestic borders to Dec. 13, from a previous estimate of Dec. 17.

He said the airline remained on track to decide by the end of the year on a preferred supplier for more than 100 planes to replace its ageing domestic fleet.

In the international market, it will take far longer to recover to pre-Covid levels, though Qantas will bring back some of its A380 super-jumbo planes for flights from Sydney to London and New York from next July.

Joyce said that although some decline in international business travel was expected, his airline relied on leisure travellers for 60% of premium revenue, large companies for 20% and small and medium businesses for 20%. - Reuters

Toyota to build new battery plant

Toyota Motor Corp announced on Monday it is building a new US$1.29 billion battery plant in North Carolina as it moves to expand its hybrid and electric vehicle efforts.

Toyota said the North Carolina plant plans to eventually expand to at least six production lines for up to 1.2 million batteries annually.

The investment is part of Toyota's October announcement it would invest US$3.4 billion on US automotive battery development and production through 2030.

The funds are part of the US$13.5 billion Toyota announced in September it planned to spend globally by 2030 to develop batteries.

Automakers around the world are investing billions of dollars to ramp up battery and electric vehicle production as they face increasingly stringent environmental regulations. - Reuters

Evergrande moves toward restructuring

China Evergrande Group has set up a risk management committee as the cash-strapped property developer inches closer to a debt restructuring that has loomed for months over global markets and the world's second-largest economy.

The real estate giant, which is grappling with over US$300 billion in liabilities and is at risk of becoming China's biggest ever default, said on Monday that the committee included officials from state entities and would play an important role in "mitigating and eliminating the future risks" of the group.

"Evergrande's been trying to sell assets to repay debt, but Friday's statement basically says it is going to 'surrender' and needs help," said Conita Hung, investment strategy director at Tiger Faith Asset Management. "This sends a very bad signal."

Evergrande shares slumped to a record low on Monday as it teetered, yet again, on the brink of default with the end of a 30-day grace period looming on dues totalling US$82.5 million.

If Evergrande was declared in formal default it would trigger a wave of cross defaults that would ripple through the property sector and beyond, potentially rattling global investor confidence, already shaken by the emergence of the Omicron variant of the coronavirus. - Reuters