Inside the world of business
Dragon adapts to the heat that comes with stardom
FOR ONE Dragon, the fame that goes with regular television appearances is proving to be a bit of an eye-opener.
Since joining the panel of investors in RTÉ’s Dragons’ Den earlier this year, Sean O’Sullivan is getting used to living the life of a celebrity.
O’Sullivan first came to prominence through the creation of MapInfo, a $200 million software company he founded back in the 1980s. More recently, he set up SOSventures, a venture capital fund; and Avego, a software firm in his new hometown of Kinsale, Co Cork.
But the good-natured Irish-American is taking all the attention in his stride. Yesterday he was approached at Heuston Station by a “gaggle of girls” looking to get their photo taken with him, and he was happy to oblige.
While he refuses to comment on just how much he invests during this series (“You’ll have to watch the whole season”), he concedes he is one of the most active investors on the panel, which also includes publishing doyenne Norah Casey and Insomnia’s Bobby Kerr.
So far, O’Sullivan says the experience has been “great fun”, noting that it’s a “wonderful tutorial for the public” on the ways of business.
“It helps people who are in the audience to tune in to understand business,” he says, adding that it will “help the next generation of entrepreneurs to learn how to pitch better”.
He notes that when bidding gets intense among the dragons he has an added advantage, as through SOSventures he can provide additional resources to the entrepreneur.
But while O’Sullivan might be starting to enjoy his new-found fame, what might be a bit disconcerting is that he has found more fame in five or six episodes of a reality television programme than in all his time pioneering digital technology.
It’s a brave new world indeed.
Big Pharma in need of pick-me-up as dreaded patent cliff takes a toll
NOVARTIS BOSS Joe Jiminez this week summed up succinctly the situation confronting the world’s most successful pharmaceutical companies. “We expected a challenging quarter, and we delivered in line with our expectations,” he told analysts.
Big pharma is in need of a pick-me-up. As first quarter figures this week show how the financial impact of the dreaded patent cliff is eating ever more acutely into company profits, the sector-wide search for a potentially lucrative and reliable pipeline is coming into sharper focus.
Novartis, AstraZeneca and Eli Lilly have all reported numbers that reflect the relentless slowdown in revenues as the drugs that have driven industry profit over the past decade lose their exclusivity. Pfizer is likely to be even more dramatic in its presentation next week, although the sale of its nutritionals business will provide some gloss.
Even GlaxoSmithKline, generally accepted to be in a much better place than its peers, took a hit, as the emerging markets on which it increasingly relies proved less reliable than expected in the first three months of the year.
GSK yesterday reported profit of 27.3p per share – less than the 29p analysts expected – on sales that rose by just 1 per cent, also below expectations.
Eli Lilly fared slightly better in the market, even though its earnings per share fell to 91 cent from 95 in the year ago period. The figure was well ahead of the 78 cent analysts had feared as generics had a smaller than expected impact following the loss of patent protection by key schizophrenia drug Zyprexa. But there is little confidence it, and its peers, can continue to defy competition from generics as lucrative patents expire this year and next.
That explains the aggressive moves this week by Britain’s GSK and Anglo-Swedish underperformer AstraZeneca for acquisitions in the biotech space, which is seen to hold the best prospects for revenue replacement.
AstraZeneca agreed to pay a 51 per cent premium for Ardea Biosciences while GSK offered a 68 per cent premium to another US biotech, Human Genome Sciences, only to be rebuffed, for now anyway. Both show the increasing urgency with which drug firms, some with expensive in-house failures behind them – are having to chase future revenue streams.
The stakes are high in what remains a risky game. And even with the Ardea deal, AstraZeneca chief executive David Brennan is widely seen as living on borrowed time. Challenging isn’t the half of it.
SMEs feel pain as credit tightens
THERE IS little doubt that despite any headline figures that might suggest the economy is stabilising, the 200,000 small businesses around the country continue to feel the pain. Larger export-focused firms are relatively shielded from the moribund domestic economy.
Minister for Small Business John Perry put his best foot forward yesterday when he launched Info2Innovate, a new web-based directory of support and services for small to medium enterprises. The directory, developed by Dublin Chamber of Commerce and Enterprise Ireland, lists 460 supports and services, many provided by State agencies.
In fact the level of State support for small businesses compares favourably with the situation internationally. Overseas visitors are constantly amazed that the State takes a stake in start-up companies through Enterprise Ireland’s investments alongside the private sector. That agency’s chief executive, Frank Ryan, has even been known to joke that he is one of the most active venture capitalists in Europe. But the State can’t do all the heavy lifting. As successive administrations have told us, we need a functioning banking sector if Ireland is to get back to any semblance of a functioning economy.
But the scale of the problem was underlined by statistics on bank credit released by the Central Bank yesterday. In contrast with the rest of Europe, credit is getting tighter here for the first time since 2010.
Government support and initiatives are clearly helpful, but really just a drop in the ocean. But what the SME sector, which employs 650,000 people and contributes €10 billion to the Exchequer annually, really needs is access to commercial credit.
Quote of the day
"Those tools remained very much on the table and we would not hesitate to use them" – US Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke firmly left the door open to another round of quantative easing yesterday
TODAY
The IMF/ECB/EU troika will conclude its review of Ireland’s bailout programme, but will not be holding a public press conference.
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