International stocks trading in New York closed higher on
Wednesday. The BNY Mellon index of American depositary receipts
rose 0.85% to 153.67. The European index increased 0.77% to 151.12,
the Asian index improved 1.1% to 150.73, the Latin American index
rose 0.76% to 292.45 and the emerging markets index increased 1.24%
to 300.99. Among the companies with shares that actively traded was
mining giant BHP Billiton.
BHP Billiton is considering a secondary listing in London for a
new company it is spinning off containing noncore mining assets,
following pressure from shareholders who were unhappy at its
original plan to list the company only in Australia and South
Africa. Shares of London-listed BHP Billiton PLC (BBL, BLT.LN) rose
2.7% to $58.68 while shares of Australia-listed BHP Billiton Ltd.
(BHP, BHP.AU) rose 1.2% to $62.20.
Shire Pharmaceuticals LLC has agreed to pay $56.5 million to
settle allegations that it overstated the efficacy of several of
its drugs, including the attention-deficit treatment Adderall XR,
the U.S. Department of Justice said Wednesday. Shire
Pharmaceuticals, a unit of Dublin-based drugmaker Shire PLC (SHPG,
SHP.LN), allegedly violated the False Claims Act from 2004 to 2007
by promoting that Adderall could "normalize" recipients, making
them indistinguishable from non-ADHD peers. Shire shares rose 2.1%
to $256.09.
Write to Tess Stynes at tess.stynes@wsj.com
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