Renault: The espionage case that wasn’t
French carmaker Renault was “under pressure to replace managers” this week after it had to apologize to three executives wrongly fired in January for alleged industrial espionage, said Laurence Frost in Bloomberg.com. The case against the three neared collapse as prosecutors charged Renault security official Dominique Gevrey with fraud over his role in the investigation. Gevrey had accused the three of selling secret electric-car technology to Chinese agents, but no one has been able to confirm the existence of the secret bank accounts where he claimed they had stashed their payments.
This scandal could ultimately cost well-respected Renault CEO Carlos Ghosn his job, said Paul Betts in the Financial Times. The executive, who also runs Nissan, was parachuted into Renault in 2005 “to adapt the company to global competition,” and in many respects he has succeeded. But the combination of his frequent absences from the office and his relentless pressure for results seems to have led some employees to go too far in their efforts to please the boss. Having “failed to understand the internal culture” of Renault, Ghosn now looks “paranoid and careless.”
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Deals: Berkshire buys Lubrizol for $9.7 billion
Warren Buffett wasn’t kidding, said Polya Lesova in MarketWatch.com. Little more than a week after saying that his Berkshire Hathaway holding company was itching to make an acquisition, Buffett has struck a deal to pay $9.7 billion for Lubrizol, an Ohio-based producer of lubricant additives for engine oils. At $135 a share, Berkshire’s takeover bid is 28 percent above Lubrizol’s closing stock price before the deal was disclosed. Buffett’s advice to CEO James Hambrick: “Just keep doing for us what you’ve done so successfully for your shareholders.”
Pharmaceuticals: New lupus drug approved
The Food and Drug Administration has approved the first new treatment for the autoimmune disease lupus in more than 50 years, said Alan Wolf in the Raleigh, N.C., NewsObserver.com. Human Genome Sciences and GlaxoSmithKline jointly developed the drug, known as Benlysta, and “will split future profits.” Some analysts expect the drug to eventually generate $2 billion in annual revenue, even as researchers cautioned that it was no “magic bullet.” Deidre Connelly, GSK’s top North American executive, has more than a professional interest in the drug: Her father died of lupus in 1994.
Regulation: J&J agrees to FDA scrutiny
Johnson & Johnson, the largest producer of over-the-counter drugs, will face tougher scrutiny from federal regulators at three plants “linked to multiple recalls of medication” since 2009, said Matthew Perrone in the Associated Press. Under the threat of millions of dollars in fines, J&J’s McNeil Consumer Healthcare unit agreed with the FDA to hire third-party experts to recommend improvements at plants in Fort Washington, Pa.; Lancaster, Pa.; and Las Piedras, Puerto Rico. Since September 2009, J&J has issued 20 recalls of drugs, including Children’s Tylenol and Benadryl.
Autos: A sudden exit for GM’s CFO
General Motors Chief Financial Officer Christopher Liddell, 52, resigned abruptly last week, in the latest instance of management turmoil at America’s largest carmaker, said Jerry Hirsch in the Los Angeles Times. Liddell, praised by analysts and shareholders for restoring GM to profitability and guiding it through last year’s initial public offering, had been with the company since January 2010.
