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The board of Vectura has unanimously recommended that shareholders accept a £1.1bn takeover bid from Philip Morris International (PMI) despite warnings from health charities and public health experts. In a statement, the Vectura board said it considered the PMI offer “fair and reasonable”.
PMI now has 60 days from the launch of its offer document to win the support of Vectura’s shareholders. It needs backing from holders of more than 50% of the shares. The company’s main shareholders are a series of American investment firms. None of the individual funds at the top of Vectura’s shareholder list appear to screen out tobacco although the fund management companies behind them do offer products targeted at ethical investors.
However, three of Vectura’s largest investors, Axa Investment Managers, TIG Advisers, and Berry Street Capital Management, had publicly backed the Carlyle bid and are expected not support the PMI offer due to ethical concerns and other shareholders’ websites advertise tobacco free funds. The bidding war for Vectura has led to a near 40% spike in the company’s share price. Chief executive Will Downie could receive pay and bonuses of £2.4m this year if the company’s shares rise by more than 50%.
Vectura’s decision came despite more than 20 health charities, public health experts, and doctors sending a letter to the Vectura board urging them to reject the bid. The letter, signed by heads of charities including the British Lung Foundation, ASH and the American Lung Association, said: “Vectura’s future commercial viability as a company dedicated to improving respiratory health would be seriously jeopardised should the PMI takeover proceed.”
Sarah Woolnough, chief executive of Asthma UK and the British Lung Foundation, said the charities were “extremely shocked and concerned” at the news. “We will continue to oppose this dreadful proposed takeover until a final decision is made. We appeal now to Vectura’s shareholders to make the right and ethical choice and say no to big tobacco.”
Source: The Guardian, 12 August 2021
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The Guardian commentator Nils Pratley argues that Vectura’s board have misunderstood their “fiduciary duties” in recommending PMI’s bid to shareholders.
On Thursday 12th August, Vectura’s board, chaired by Bruno Angelici, put out a statement that referenced Vectura’s “fiduciary duties” and the “superior price” of PMI’s 165p-a-share bid. Pratley points out, however, that a fiduciary duty, as the outside world understands the term, means doing the best thing for the company.
Angelici and the board did not bother to acknowledge the storm of protest from healthcare charities and public health experts in their statement, despite releasing their own statement last Friday 6th August in which they said that Vectura may be “better positioned” under Carlyle. Pratley argues that the swift change of thinking is “a severe case of groupthink”. Pratley wonders if Vectura’s scientists were ever consulted.
Pratley says that defeating the Philip Morris offer will now be down to Vectura’s major shareholders. He argues that they have a chance to demonstrate what they mean when they talk about responsible investing but warns: “Don’t expect them to take it – or, at least, not a majority. Most are equally capable of stretching the definition of fiduciary duties to breaking point.”
Source: The Guardian, 12 August 2021
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The LGC has learned that four council leaders have proposed working with the Government to create an East Midlands combined authority. Nottinghamshire County Council leader Ben Bradley said that he and the leaders of Derbyshire County Council and Nottingham and Derby city councils had written to the communities secretary indicating that their preferred option for devolution would be a mayoral combined authority across the four councils.
The leaders were responding to local government minister Luke Hall’s recent invitation for expressions of interest in devolution deals. Full details of this process will be set out in this autumn’s levelling up white paper, but councils interested in discussing early deals were asked to contact ministers by Friday 13th August. The government has indicated that county areas are the preferred basis for these deals but has welcomed discussions on creating mayoral combined authorities and city regions.
Bradley argued that the area covered by the four councils was “quite advanced” on devolution already and that existing frameworks, such as plans “pretty much finished” in 2015 for a deal covering Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire, could be updated to fit. He predicted that the “deciding factor” would be getting agreement on a deal across all the area’s councils, including districts.
Source: LGC, 12 August 2021
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A new Gallup survey has found that the percentage of Americans who smoke cigarettes stands near its lowest point on record. The poll found that 16% of American adults reported smoking any cigarettes in the past week, nearly statistically the same as the record low 15% of Americans who reported smoking any cigarettes in 2019, whilst 23% of adults say they previously smoked cigarettes regularly.
Gallup has measured Americans' cigarette use since 1944 and until 1974 at least 40% of adults reported having smoked any cigarettes in the past week. The high was 45% in 1954. Since 1999, a majority of smokers report that they smoke less than one pack of cigarettes per day, and the percentage of smokers smoking one or more packs per day has declined.
The survey also measured electronic cigarette use and found its prevalence varied across demographic groups. People aged 18 to 29 years old were most likely to vape with 17% of people in this group reporting using e-cigarettes in the past week compared to 5% of people aged 30 to 49 and 2% of people aged 50 to 64.
Source: US News, 12 August 2021
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An investigation has relayed the terrible working conditions that workers on North Carolina’s tobacco farms are forced to endure.
The workers battle heat and humidity and risk absorbing tobacco leaves’ nicotine into their skin, posing multiple health problems. Workers recall seeing colleagues get allergies, insomnia, vomiting, and dehydration and end up needing to go for IV drips at local clinics. On top of the nicotine, pesticides sprayed on the plants pose health risks too.
Workers recount drinking milk or lime juice in order to cleanse their mouths of the sour taste from working close to the plant. Workers are expected to bring their own buckets filled with water and ice to combat dehydration. Workers say that no masks are provided to prevent inhalation of pesticides and workers are responsible for bringing their own gloves. Workers use garbage bags to cover up their bodies when tobacco plants are particularly wet after rain and the risk of nicotine absorption higher.
The visa program through which many of the workers are employed also has well-documented issues with exploitation and abuse of workers. Many workers are hired through labour contractors who sponsor visas and then sell the labour to farms. Because workers’ time in the country is dependent on a single employer, workers are dissuaded from speaking about problems. Losing their visa status means losing their livelihoods. Workers also recount a particular problem with sexual harassment on the farms.
North Carolina is one of the top-five employers of visa workers in the country. In 2019, the number of farmworkers who picked tobacco accounted for 48% of all visa worker positions in the state. The total number of visa worker tobacco positions the federal government has certified in the past five years has almost doubled from about 140,000 in 2015 to 275,000 in 2020. Demand from China drives much of North Carolina’s tobacco industry and that demand is expected to increase post-Covid.
Source: Civil Eats, 13 August 2021
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All Our Health communications toolkit
Health Education England elearning for healthcare (HEE elfh) and Public Health England have produced an interactive communications toolkit for the All Our Health programme.
All Our Health resources cover key public health issues including obesity, dementia, air pollution, and county lines exploitation. This communications toolkit is designed to help those working across communities and places to raise greater awareness of the resources and call on more professionals to improve their knowledge and confidence in tackling health inequalities.
The toolkit includes the following useful promotional materials:
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Written summary of the programme
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Email signature template
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Introductory video
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Poster
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Social media assets including animated GIFs
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Testimonials
To access the toolkit and session, please visit the Supporting Tools and Resources section of the All Our Health programme page (see below).
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ASH Daily News is a digest of published news on smoking-related topics. ASH is not responsible for the content of external websites. ASH does not necessarily endorse the material contained in this bulletin.
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