Santander completes Swiss auto financing assets sale

(AWP Alliance News) - The following is a round-up of updates by global companies, issued on Tuesday and not separately reported by Alliance News:

----------

Banco Santander SA - Santander, Spain-based financial services company - Completes the sale of assets under its Swiss auto financing business to Cembra Money Bank AG. Says the transaction adds CHF800 million, USD980.3 million, of leasing assets to Cembra's portfolio, CHF670 million of which is consolidated as of Monday. The remainder will follow in 2027. The transaction is expected to be accretive to earnings per share from 2027 onwards and to increase Cembra's return on equity by around 25 basis points from 2028. "The combination of additional scale, new and expanded manufacturer relationships, and the strategic partnership with Santander further reinforces Cembra's position as one of Switzerland's leading providers of automotive financing solutions, particularly in the new car segment," Santander says. Cembra has also entered into an exclusive partnership agreement with Santander for pan-European leasing and financing programmes in Switzerland. The agreement establishes a long-term framework for cooperation and creates "attractive opportunities for future growth," it adds.

----------

Merck & Co Inc - Rahway, New Jersey-based drugmaker - Begins patient recruitment for its Enhance-3 phase 3 trial evaluating Ohtuvayre, generic name ensifentrine, for the prevention of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease exacerbations in adults receiving standard of care with a history of exacerbations. Based on the Enhance-1 and Enhance-2 studies, Ohtuvayre was approved by the US Food and Drug Administration in 2024 for the maintenance treatment of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease in adults.

----------

Merck KGaA - Darmstadt, Germany-based science and technology company and Lonza Group Ltd - Basel, Switzerland-based pharmaceutical company - Merck agrees to divest its contract development and manufacturing organization business within its Life Science segment to Lonza. Says this enables it to focus its portfolio on "innovation-driven businesses with strong value-creation potential." Adds: "This means prioritizing areas where the company's science and technology capabilities offer the greatest opportunity to lead and meet evolving customer needs. It also positions the CDMO business for its next phase of development under an organization with a dedicated focus on contract development and manufacturing," Merck says. Lonza will acquire the business for a mid-triple-digit million-euro amount. The transaction is expected to close in mid-2027.

----------

CrowdStrike Holdings Inc - Austin, Texas-based cybersecurity company - Signs definitive agreement to acquire Fiddler AI, a leader in AI agent observability and explainability. Says Fiddler will "bring pre-deployment evaluation, continuous behavioral accountability, and agent explainability to the Falcon platform." "Every company is deploying agents and asking the same thing: what are agents actually doing?", says George Kurtz, chief executive. Adds: "When a regulator or your board asks what an agent did, saying 'the model did it' is not an answer. Fiddler is the flight recorder for every agent: the observability to explain exactly what an agent did and why. This level of agent visibility and control enables AI safety." Additionally, signs definitive agreement to acquire Dreadnode, a leader in automated AI security testing. "Dreadnode will extend the Falcon platform to continuously test every AI model, application, and agent for security weaknesses before deployment," the company says. "Enterprises are deploying AI faster than they can prove it is secure. A model can be jailbroken, an agent can be manipulated, and most organizations have no way to find those flaws until the AI is already in production," CEO Kurtz says. "With Dreadnode, CrowdStrike will give every enterprise the power to trust AI and deploy faster, with confidence." Both transactions are expected to close by January 31.

----------

By Aidan Lane, Alliance News reporter

Comments and questions to newsroom [at] alliancenews.com