MONDAY
The rate of growth in North America’s drugs market is set to grind to a halt over the next three years amid mounting safety fears, according to forecasts from IMS Health, a leading consultant. The findings come as Verizon Communications unveils the $6.7 billion-plus (£3.5 billion) acquisition of MCI, the telecoms company formerly known as WorldCom, foiling an $8 billion bid by Qwest Communications. Investors in MCI encourage Qwest to submit a fresh bid and vow to resist Verizon’s offer. Philip Green, the retail billionaire, prepares to launch stand-alone stores for furniture and homewares, after buying ten outlets from Allders, the store group in administration. Fees for taking out a mortgage have risen dramatically in the past six months as lenders seek to recoup profits lost on cut-price home loans.
TUESDAY
The German and Italian economies shrank in the final quarter of last year, confronting the European Central Bank with a dilemma over a two-speed eurozone, according to new figures. Gordon Brown prepares to make a plea to MG Rover’s would-be Chinese partner to complete the deal intended to safeguard the carmaker’s Longbridge factory. It emerges that Rank, the leisure operator, will next week signal its intention to demerge its Deluxe film-processing unit and seek buyers for Deluxe’s media business. Insurers are left exposed to up to £1 billion in damages claims after losing a fight in their legal battle against people with a harmless asbestos-related condition. Rothschild, the merchant bank, announces that it will link up with Nomura, the Japanese Securities firm.
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WEDNESDAY
Alan Greenspan, the Chairman of the US Federal Reserve, steels Wall Street for further interest rate rises, hinting that the Fed will act more aggressively if borrowing costs fail to rise in response to previous Fed action. The Bank of England leaves open the door to raising interest rates further this year but signals that it is in no hurry to do so. It emerges that Kohlberg Kravis Roberts, the US buyout firm, is preparing to sell Mannesmann Plastics Machinery, which manufactures Coca-Cola bottles, for about €700 million (£483 million). BMW says it is pumping £100 million over the next two years into its Mini car plant in Oxford, creating 200 new jobs. The Office of Fair Trading rules against a referral of the bids for the London Stock Exchange to the competition authorities in Brussels.
THURSDAY
Sellafield, Britain’s biggest nuclear reprocessing site, said that it had “lost” 30 kilograms of plutonium, enough for seven or eight nuclear bombs, because of an “accounting” problem. Politicians gave warning of a chasm between workers with government pensions and those in the private sector, as it emerged that the public sector pension bill rose by nearly a fifth to £690 million in 2004. British power generators could make windfall profits of up to £2 billion a year from the new Emissions Trading Scheme, according to analysts. The European Union reopens a transatlantic dispute over US tax breaks before President Bush’s visit to Brussels this weekend. The European Medicines Agency says that patients taking Cox-2 inhibitors should stop their treatment if they suffer from heart disease or stroke.