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Business

Business News in Brief:

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July 10th, 2014


This article is more than 10 years old.

Busy week for pension funds

PFA’s 2014 profits
Pensions provider PFA has reported a 21 percent return from its Danish share portfolio over the first six months of 2014: a profit of 2 billion kroner in absolute terms. Its investment division particularly attributed the success to the performance of Novo Nordisk, Danske Bank and Coloplast.

Veolia offloads stake
The French waste management and recycling company Veolia Environnement has sold its 65 percent stake in Danish counterpart Marius Pedersen Group to the Marius Pedersen Foundation for 1.79 billion kroner as part of its debt reduction strategy. The sale means the foundation now owns 100 percent of the company.

Brightpoint got it wrong
An audit by PwC has discovered that Danish IT company Brightpoint Europe overstated its net income for 2013 by 688 million kroner – a miscalculation that will swallow up a third of the profits of its parent company Ingram Micro. Brightpoint listed the amount as receivables, but PwC said it should have been valued at zero.

Keep it in Germany
Pension funds administrator PKA and life insurer Topdanmark have found the perfect buyer for their German residential property portfolio: the German property company Immeo. The 1.8 billion kroner sale price represents a 30 percent profit since the pair took over ownership in 2007. The properties were located in Berlin and Dresden.

US pharma deal
Xellia Pharmaceuticals, a Copenhagen-based pharma company that specialises in providing treatments against life-threatening infections, has signed a deal with US business partner Fresenius Kabi to take over its manufacturing plant in Raleigh, North Carolina. The deal means Xellia now has plants in Denmark, China, Hungary and the US.

Double deal for LD
Danish pension fund Lønmodtagernes Dyrtidsfond has agreed contracts with two US investment companies. Boston-based MFS Investment Management will manage 6 billion kroner in global equities for the fund, while Californian-based Fisher Investments will have 2 billion to play with in emerging market equities.


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A survey carried out by Megafon for TV2 has found that 71 percent of parents have handed over children to daycare in spite of them being sick.

Moreover, 21 percent of those surveyed admitted to medicating their kids with paracetamol, such as Panodil, before sending them to school.

The FOLA parents’ organisation is shocked by the findings.

“I think it is absolutely crazy. It simply cannot be that a child goes to school sick and plays with lots of other children. Then we are faced with the fact that they will infect the whole institution,” said FOLA chair Signe Nielsen.

Pill pushers
At the Børnehuset daycare institution in Silkeborg a meeting was called where parents were implored not to bring their sick children to school.

At Børnehuset there are fears that parents prefer to pack their kids off with a pill without informing teachers.

“We occasionally have children who that they have had a pill for breakfast,” said headteacher Susanne Bødker. “You might think that it is a Panodil more than a vitamin pill, if it is a child who has just been sick, for example.”

Parents sick and tired
Parents, when confronted, often cite pressure at work as a reason for not being able to stay at home with their children.

Many declare that they simply cannot take another day off, as they are afraid of being fired.

Allan Randrup Thomsen, a professor of virology at KU, has heavily criticised the parents’ actions, describing the current situation as a “vicious circle”.

“It promotes the spread of viruses, and it adds momentum to a cycle where parents are pressured by high levels of sick-leave. If they then choose to send the children to daycare while they are still recovering, they keep the epidemic going in daycares, and this in turn puts a greater burden on the parents.”