Corona Capital: Smokes, Banks, Toasters
16/12/2020 11:29
(The authors are Reuters Breakingviews columnists. The
opinions expressed are their own.)
By Breakingviews columnists
LONDON/MELBOURNE/HONG KONG, Dec 16 (Reuters Breakingviews) -
C orona Capital is a column updated throughout the day by
Breakingviews columnists around the world with short, sharp
pandemic-related insights.
LATEST
- BAT vaccine
- Australian banking
- Balmuda IPO
STUB IT OUT. Tobacco and respiratory illnesses are often
paired for unfortunate reasons. But British American Tobacco
BATS.L looks to be trying to change that by developing a
Covid-19 vaccine. The 64 billion pound maker of Lucky Strike
cigarettes said on Wednesday that its inoculation candidate https://www.bat.com/group/sites/UK__9D9KCY.nsf/vwPagesWebLive/DOBWBNF3
was approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for a
Phase 1 study.
BAT is far behind Big Pharma in its race for a vaccine.
Pfizer PFE.N began vaccinating people in the United States and
Britain this month. AstraZeneca AZN.L and Moderna MRNA.O are
close behind. And BAT’s capacity could also be an issue, as it
is only aiming to manufacture 1 million doses to 3 million doses
per week. That’s at most 12 million doses per month, around
one-tenth of what Pfizer is aiming to roll out next year. But
even if the vaccine doesn’t work out or gain much traction,
investing in helping solve the coronavirus crisis will certainly
boost BAT’s environmental, social and corporate governance
credentials. (By Aimee Donnellan)
BREAKING THE BANK. The pandemic tide lifted many, but not
all, technological boats. Xinja, Australia’s first independent
online bank, said on Wednesday it was closing all its savings
accounts https://xinja.com.au/press/2020/media-release-xinja-bank-withdraws-deposit-accounts,
returning $378 million in deposits and handing back the licence
it was granted a little over a year ago. The startup, co-founded
and led by Eric Wilson, blamed Covid-19 and a tough fundraising
environment.
A $325 million commitment from a Dubai-based investor https://xinja.com.au/news/2020/media-release-dubais-world-investments-invests-433m-in-xinja-bank
in March fell through. Around the same time, as the Reserve
Bank of Australia was slashing interest rates, Xinja said it
would stop opening new accounts but keep paying an attractive
2.25% to existing customers, even though it never managed to
start lending. Cracking oligopolistic banking markets like the
one Down Under is tough in the best of circumstances, and nearly
impossible during a downturn. Xinja’s plan to carry on with a
fledgling U.S. stock-trading business could be equally tough.
(By Jeffrey Goldfarb)
INTERNET OF TOAST. The pandemic has been kind to kitchen
gadgets. The combination of enforced home cooking and e-commerce
appears to have driven stir-crazy gourmands to stock up on
appliances. In Japan, that helped Balmuda 6612.T , maker of a
$225 toaster, raise $30 million in its Tokyo initial public
offering and log an 88% first-day pop on Wednesday urn:newsml:reuters.com:*:nL1N2IW042.
Like New York-listed super-cooler maker Yeti YETI.N , which
has seen shares double this year, Balmuda’s devices push
performance envelopes of otherwise prosaic product categories.
As reviewed by Wired https://www.wired.com/2016/10/review-balmuda-toaster,
“The Toaster” steams bread while it toasts it, keeping it moist
on the inside and crisped on the outside. It also looks like
something neat-freak Marie Kondo would own. If you build a
better toaster, the quarantined world beats a path to your door.
(By Pete Sweeney)
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(Editing by Neil Unmack and Oliver Taslic)