Twitter slows. Hello. Welcome to countdown. I am mark barton. I am anna edwards. In london. Welcome to the program. We begin with the earnings. First quarter profits rising 5. 2 . That is the net income increased. Analysts anticipate a profit of 1. 44 billion. The reason why it has been booted boosted by the purchase of its division in bell john. Belgium. Earnings were boosted by a drop in payments to minority shareholders after bnp body stake in one of its units for three and a quarter billion euros. It is worth noting bp hosted its profits and 08 after setting aside payments to u. S. Economic sanctions. It did say today that talks took place on the matter during the First Quarter. There is still uncertainty on the size of the penalty. Be excluded,annot but it could be significantly larger than the amount provision. That is worth noting. Bas profit rose and exceeded analyst estimates held by the person its of its provision in the elgin. Belgium. And they spoke to bloomberg. Reconsidered 1. 7 billion as a slight result. Five percent versus last year. Retail and the resilience toss her under control. Control. E it under there was caution taken for the uncertainty in europe. With a from frances alstom. And that the batter in the middle of the bid battle. Theyre saying that they are considering the offer of ges the postal. They say they have received an offer from ge. Deadline and euros is 12. 35 billion euros. That theyy are saying would use the proceeds to transport their business. They would cut their debt and they would return cash to shareholders. They would take that interest in account. Lets bring in david tweed. He has been following this story. We were bringing people over the start of people familiar were suggesting a were getting confirmation that alstom has received something of a binding nature from ge. What that means is alstom will open the bush asians with ge about this bid. We got a short statement that took place in munich yesterday. Siemens also make a bid for alstom. Not quite sure how that will look whether there make a bid for the dark company are just bid for a part of it. An attachment to that statement as well. They would make their bid, but it is pending access to Financial Information from alstom and access to alstom executives alstom give siemens wants to interview alstom executives about the financial state of the company. After which they will decide to go ahead. It is a little bit uncomfortable for alstom. Alstom is under a lot of pressure to consider all of its alstomparticularly was accused of a breach of national ethics. It opened up negotiations with General Electric without consulting the french government. It looks as if they are going to consult the french government. That interest will be taken into account. The french government is a huge client of alstom even if it doesnt own alstom shares. Siemens. Ntioned they have been in gauging in a little bit of mna at 70 on the side. A activity on the side. Their gas turbine and compressor business is a business nowhere near the scale of alstom. Business that is the spinoff old rollsroyce. Of rollsroyce. It makes gas turbines as well. It is something that we think siemens wants and that strategy review. That is something for us to watch. And alstom shares as well. They begin trading today. Thank you, david tweed in berlin. Probably see mario this isacing political, isnt it . It is. North numbers. Or german inflation improved, but below target. Mandate to hit about two percent or just below. They are nowhere near it. Should they do more, people are produced seduced by that. Trombone is that if you listen to mario draghi, the best Case Scenario is we get. Ack toward the target areaq qe is not imminent. Youpeople betting on qe, are betting that mario draghi will be wrong. There is news about europes next round of stress tests and how they would work. Debbie catching up with a ecb. That era beenrned 90 fall in stocks and north percent inflation. Some of these basal be tested. Some are not far off a couple of those. They are serious. Banks are taking it seriously. Things have spent on the ballot. Heets by 104 billion euros that is just since last july. Take a listen here. What we find out will be less than what it will be if with that concerned awareecause the market is of what is going on. The good news. Theyre strengthening the balance sheet. The bad news is that yesterday shows that bank lending in the u. S. Is contracting. Was two things are conflicting goals. How do you get angst to write capital . Thank you. Rex twitter disappoints. Revenue goes up, but user use goes down. Hans nichols gives us the numbers and what we hope is more than 140 characters. [laughter] always been a bit of a popularity contest. On that metric, it is losing. User growth is not as strong enough. When you look to the sales number, that was decent. That is sequential growth. Take a look at the number of new users. 255 million users. That is a six percent growth quarter over quarter, your beer. Down 25 . It is slowing. Take a look at the numbers. 185 million users six quarters ago. They have gone up to 265 million. It is down 36 over the year. Theres some speculation that today it will drop below its ipo level. You look at the crucial issue of user engagement. Lets take a look at what the ceo says that he needs to tweak some things. We are in the process of working to increase the value of the experience. People are looking at their timelines little bit more. Overall, the growth is lower there. I might taught you at the top of the next hour about how many users you had for your sequential growth is. Once i get nasty notes from producers, be prepared. Oh, taunt away, hans. Im fairly confident i will get to beat my copresenter thus. Its a popularity contest. We know you were cool in high school and i wasnt. Im prepared to lose. I do not know your sources for that. I can conform or deny i was cool in high school. Confirm or deny i was cool in high school. Here to tell us more about business benefits as Caroline Hyde in london at the flag should store. Good morning. They are busy cleaning away behind me. They have teamed up with top shop. They have collection after collection, 15 collections in total. Hey had a dj it was a fantastic event. They celebrated. Many are now on ebay . Today it launches worldwide across the world and more than 340 stores. I will give you an exclusive interview later today. Well talk about what the business is with teaming up with the likes of kate moss. Thank you. She is at the shop. I thought you and out for a shopping trip. Reshuffling. Time for todays company news. The largest u. S. Operator has agreed to buy Pepco Holdings for more than five point 4 billion in cash according to people familiar with the matter. N may announce acquisition as early as this afternoon. Pepco has confirmed the washington metro area and the midatlantic. Wires proposing a deal for the consumer and business could include some of the german companys pharmaceutical assets and theyre trying to compete with the bid with reckitt. Goals Royce Holding in talks to sell its power and adjacent to siemens. It had revenue of 1. 0 5 billion pounds last year. The deal would further retooled the European Energy landscape and siemens and ge work on competing offers. Welcome back to countdown. I am mark barton. I am anna edwards. It is 60 minutes past 6 a. M. In london. Our clays is set to move its commodities into a bad bank of unwanted assets. The news comes after skip mcgee is scarce stepping down as americas division. Is one of the best paid officials. Joining us is the head of Global Equities at anderson and global investors. Welcome. Thank you for coming. Talk about barclays. This new surrounding Management Changes in the u. S. Lots of people talk about a take rate from the past. Break from the past. His look something different. This looks different. They are talking about a bad and 2010. 2009 they are responding to pressure from the regulator. U. K. Regulators believe what they leave is appropriate and put pressure to shrink down the asset. This is to be one of the themes. I mean that barclays has to take more action in ensuring that. What would that look like . It would require shrinking the bank and the commodities business. We will see a reduction in size. What i find interesting is that lots of management. Strongly about preserving investment banks. Now it seems strong quite considerably. It could only be a reactive strategy. Per Share Holders of Oil Companies how do we react to news from Vladimir Putin is of the further actions sanctions could jeopardize the u. S. And eu russia . They are planning an art to drilling alliance. How are we to react to news like that. Theres so much uncertainty. The talk about how well it has performed. The prices are up. Investors themselves are looking for defensive growth. Theyre very concerned about emerging markets still. Caps on the high evaluations it has attracted. Sector. As been quite a most of the stocks trade at roughly similar levels. The geopolitical tensions were talking about. But if you do have exposure exelon clearly does and shell clearly does. Shouldnt that be added into populations . Manyr bp and so diversified, these are global businesses. They are exposed to some of the changing parts of the world. The value of these businesses is the Long Duration of the assets. Talk about russia and exposure to rusk, bmp has been talking to us about spotter to russia, bnp has been talking to us about it. Are you focused on Something Else . Interesting is that there time to discern the more you train banks. Wings are no longer that ms. Valued assets that they were a year ago. Russia and Eastern Europe in general given the threat to ukraine and other ramifications in terms of slowdowns, you give some credit. Beesley. You matthew much more to come when we returned. Welcome back to countdown. I am mark barton. I am anna edwards. It is 6 23 a. M. In london. Is back with the spirit lets look at some of the macros. No change in policy. Do we forgive them for not doing anything right now . In short, yes. Thatone is understanding we will see more data at the top of the hour i believe today. They lost it by the preamble of the tax rise. That has happened. That is is that no surprise that they will wait until at least the summer. There arer strong expectations of further stimulus in the summer. If that doesnt happen, that will be a negative effect. You have been focusing your attention more on europe and japan now at the expense of north america and emerging markets. Whats going on . Theres a lot of Automotive Companies and change in japan. It has been very helpful. There is some inflation in japan. It is a hiccup in domestic demand. Youre seeing some signs of life there is a pick up in domestic demand. Youre seeing signs of life. How much of that statement applies to europe . How many bottomup companies that you can pick . A lot. Costs have been paid that aggressively year after year. And most are seeing a stabilization is not some real growth coming through an underlying revenues. The focus is to have fixed would easy leverage. I was adjustment a corporate went be surprised at how much leverage they have. And it has been a tricky month for those Fund Managers who have had a red banner your last two. What is going on . That has been a very tough month. Suddenly the perception is lots of leverage investors reduce the amount of leverage that i had. Has been an aggressive coverage of shorts and selling winners. Did well last year. That is important. And twitters user growth is slowing. Shares falling as much as 11 after hours. Were still working on mar k. Yes. [applause] [laughter] sales are still going down. Thank you. Stay with us. And earnings break in a matter of seconds. A comeback. I am anna edwards. Lets get welcome back. I am anna edwards. Lets go to Jonathan Ferro for the fx check. The bank of japan is exactly what many people expected it to be. The yen get stronger the right now theyre holding and sitting tight. That is what were waiting for the next couple of hours. Elsewhere, we look at the euro dollar. Pretty much unchanged. You can see that move right there. German emplacement it was an improvement. It was less than many people forecasted. A lot of people think it might have come under that because of the german inflation data from yesterday. It is one to watch. Euro, it is u. K. Time. Thank you. These are the Bloomberg Top headlines. Barclays is planning to move its Commodities Division of wanted assets. The unit will be overseen by the cohead of an investment bank. There were oversee businesses at the londonbased firm made footers exit quadrant. President Vladimir Putin is warning further sanchez could jeopardize deals in the energy sector. He says for now, russia will not retaliate the latest round of sanctions. Bloomberg spoke with the former minister at the milken afferents. There is a willingness to take on russia over its actions in ukraine. Crisis sends a much deeper and broader message that europe is no longer in the comparable state of mind in believing it is a secure place. At the end ofs may will be a powerful accelerator of the countries wheeling to put the act together. International Olympic Committee says the separation for the 2016 summer games of the worst that they have ever seen. The Vice President says that situation is critical. They said the situation is even worse than it was in athens where the venues were still being built on the eve of the investment. A Carlo Shumaker out with its numbers with the First Quarter profits. 1. 79 alien euros. Euros. S 1. 7 9 billion it is benefiting from demands for its newer model such as the mercedesbenz compact sedan. Deliveries rose in the First Quarter. Their rising at a faster pace than bmw. The ceo says they are progressing to regain that top spot in global luxury car sales. The growth push is rolling out 30 mercedes models by the end of the decade, including a dozen new vehicles. Is that earnings in taxes from ongoing businesses this year. It will be significant. Are expecting significant increases in sales and delivery. Sales Beat Estimates as well. Profits Beat Estimates. Far so good. For more, lets head over to berlin with hans nichols. Great. Numbers are lets be clear about this. 69 estimate increase. They beat the estimate by think 700 million euros. Exceeds me, 70 million euros. I want do the math for you, but it is growing almost as fast as s would hers account. It is heavy on china and suvs. Twitter account. It is heavy on china and suvs. They want to add 100 more in the coming years. They have some 400 outlooks. They really see a big growth there. It is the suv story in china that is driving the growth. When you look at the number of suvs over the last two years to now, take a look at market share. Global demand. 26 in will go all the way up to 40 in 2019. Overall, a good course of the auto industry. The reported earnings that was up 22 . We will be taking more into these numbers just to see how much they were hurt by the strong euro and what the fx trade did. Numbersll be remarkable great it looks like mercedes had a very good quarter. Thank you. Every time he mentions twitter, dementias my name. Im slightly ahead of he mentions many. Im slightly ahead of you. Im feeling inexplicably confident. Thank you very much for that. Kate a fouryear moss is teaming up with top shop. Here to tell us more about moss mania, Caroline Hyde is here on the flagship store. How did it go last night . It seemed to be a huge crowd here at yesterday. It lost a fanfare of djs. Kate moss was taking to the stage. Once again, the british style icon teamed up with the british powerhouse in retail. Time, theyh gathered. It moss unveiling a large collection of pieces. 600 pounds for one dress. 17 million [indiscernible] than thousands of crochet. Is to be a collaboration. It is. This is a company in which top 350 has stores in almost countries right now. Really pushing hard to germany and france. Kate mavs is not just a british style icon. She is a worldwide famous face. She has helped launch kate styles not just a british icon. She is a worldwide famous face. She has helped launch many i think it was in 19 [indiscernible] at the tender age of 14. This is why this is all about kate moss the business. She rates and 12 million pounds. Gather inre tax x i. Collection good there was a stampede to get in when it was unveiled. People were snatching dresses off the racks. In the likes of there are many tactics. U. K. Ct, if youre in the or from the united states, all of the designs of kate moss from nordstrom, it will be out before the rest is out good you can go online and start ordering. It will be interesting to see how many are there for ebay. Still buy some of those dresses for 130 pounds. She does seem to be a bit of an icon. It launches across the world later. Back to you. Thank you. I look forward to that. Think the the People Strategy was to drink wine. [laughter] im sure that something a dangerous combination. Coming up, the worlds biggest supplier. Er cork a decision hasre been made when we come back. Boiler room in london. Time for todays company news. Air france has its firstquarter loss as their field drops. Increased. Ng loss says secondquarter revenue will be lower than analyst estimates. Net loss after taking a 3 billion charge. That gives ebay about 6 billion in u. S. Cash for possible acquisition. A bank build out an italian bank with 5 billion euros of capital from investors next month. The money will be used to repay a great a capital buffer. Bloomberg spoke with a bank chief executive. The main goal of this Capital Increase is quite clear. Ofis to reverse 3 billion [indiscernible] welcome back to countdown. I am mark barton. I am anna edwards. 44 a. M. In london a company canceled its ipo. It seemed like a winning ipo combination mixing china and the appetite for pork. Mia, why is it off . They called it off. This little piggy is not going to the market. They say timing is everything. Right now, timing is not good for the World Biggest pork producer. They pulled the plug on an ipo. In hong kong. It would have been the largest the city has seen in a long time. They didnt want to sell shares at the low end of the range. Had offered shares near the bottom end. That was the range according to people familiar with the matter. Sources say that the group wouldnt accept the valuation of the low 16. 5 times. It does not clear whether the plug is completely pulled or whether it would be assessed later on. Yeah. How have the Hong Kong Ipos been doing this year . Is there concern . Is it warranted . There has been concern over the past month or two. When you look at the data come at companies that had gone public in hong kong as you have fallen on average six percent. The best performer on your nics. N is perfect optro this was a big one. It made it public debut back in january. It is a nightclub operator. It operates the best places to hang out if youre up for it. On the day went public, it was look at whereke a does not. Off 42 or so since it has gone public. Not a good ride for that one. Many companies are looking to tap into the public markets. Lets wait for the timing to be right. At the end of the day come it comes down to investor demand. Mia saini reporting from hong kong. For the first time in almost years, looking for experienced managers from other Industries Including business and finance. Weinberg joined the police to find out bloomberg joined the police to find out more. Theyre usually individuals and they lose tens of thousands of pounds good people have potentially lost [indiscernible] before the victims knew a thing, police raided this alleged for the room. Boiler room. Dressed to impress, these people are said to have been selling billionestments in 36 dollars of largely nonexistent california gold. Youre all under arrest for conspiracy to defraud. An abandoned business park. Youre looking at the heart of londons financial district. You might be working as a banker, broker, loiter. If you are, the u. K. Police might want you to work for them starting this year. For the first time, so you might have reached the position of being important in the army or business, they will be able to hone those skills for the police. Up to theld you be task . You might face opposition from within ranks. You might have to take a pay cut. My also be in charge of the next raid and uncover the next financial scam all in a days work. Bloomberg. That . Cy not yet. [laughter] the Star Wars Franchise rings back some familiar faces. We will have that story and more on countdown. Welcome back. I am anna edwards. I am mark barton. It is newspaper time. It is star wars time. Star wars aging heroes return. Harrison ford and Carrie Fisher and mark hamill will reprise their roles in the new star wars film. Disney has confirmed this yesterday. Absolutely. There will be roles for the c3p0. H actors for they will be the same actors behind the costumes. This is being rectified jj abrams recently revamped star trek franchise. I thought the first one was worth watching. This is a departure from the older ones when they have the prickles prequels. They had to do some extra Fitness Training for the three them. They are in their later ages. Will Carrie Fisher still wear the same costume . Maybe we will have a tribute. Mark will model the haircut. Ill be jabba the hut. You can be Carrie Fisher. Ok. Hans, are you a star wars fan . [laughter] e andey should just cut m go to black. My old colleague at the white house executives to make decision when they take walks is the new trend. We saw zuckerberg do it when he sealed the deal with whatsapp. Theres more clarity in the meeting. Good exercise. No longer board room meetings. People are walking in making the decisions. That is what i do. I walk around. Nice and fresh for you guys. I like this approach. Meetings would take hours because everyone was exhausted. Hans, thank you very much. Big news in the last 24 hours in the u. K. The bank of england will have a scenario of house prices falling 35 . That is the stress tests. That is a ideal. That is ethical to calculate. One of the difficult to copulate. One of the things is you have people who couldnt afford their mortgage at that point. Rates drop to 0. 5 . Over the last couple of years, people pay their mortgage. Their disposable income has been eaten away by high food prices. Aen we get those rate prices, lot of the people will get absolutely decimated. I think it is terrifically hard. Very difficult. It involves a lot of guessing where. Work. What have you got . By a munich mill. Madrid, semi final. No one would have guessed that. European titles. This is the big tight. Hype. Renaldo scored his 15th and 16 goals in this seasons champion. No one else. It would mean that they pull away. The guy wanted talk about is [indiscernible] carlo was a little bit quieter. Terrific job around madrid. Its all this money on players. Close to one billion euros. They have not been able to deliver. They have finally put together the system. Meant to be quite negative. We collect parking the bus would make it difficult for the opposition. It is a big issue. There are some comments that are really funny. A fascinating final. In chelsea parks the bus and it is boring so quick. Fantastic to watch. And the whole style of playing it will put it into question. People who say it is over and dead. Amazing results. Chelsea and madrid tonight. Lucy is going tonight. Stay tuned. Plenty of earnings from big oil business, shall be at we will see what they have to say about how the business is performing and that operations in russia. Well be back. General electric bids 12. 4 euros. The board has positively received the offer. But banking on a bad bank. Mark claeys is said to be ready to transform its investment and business. Are earning slew continues. Oil giant shell is reporting now. Welcome to countdown. It is 7 00 in london. A warm welcome. He are waiting for numbers to come through for the oil giant s hell. The nurse numbers and terms of the adjusted net income, we have 3. 3 billion dollars coming through. That is a little bit below analyst estimates. They are giving us more detail. Analysts have been looking for a drop in profit at this business just like we have seen from a few others across the european oil landscape. The refining markets have been hurt. That is something that analysts have been focusing on. Europes refining margins have been coming down. They are talking about their asset sales very and they have sold assets for 1. 5 billion in the First Quarter. How they are reshuffling their business. As for production issues, one of the projects where they have gola, theyd leaks, an have had some technical issues. The response is to explore more aggressively. They need to sell some assets. There talking about 15 billion in asset sales. We have confirmation about what they sold in the First Quarter. Billion. That is getting numbers from shell. We have got numbers from shell. Lets look at the net earnings. Dollars 7. 3 billion. Cash flow from operations, we are getting that. 14 billion. Their earnings decreased, too. 8 billion. Versus that goes down with investors. Prices are what we are talking about. They are increasing their liquefied natural gas operation. Weaker european gas prices has been weighing on other businesses. Started at the beginning of the year. He gave markets their first profit warning in 10 years. That was thanks to lack of profitability in the american business. We will see what they have to say about profitability there. Retailer, it owns homebase, the diy chain. Tax, 3. 2 million pounds. It has raised its dividend. 3. 3 pence per share. Have benefited from an upturn in economy. We will be speaking to the ceo in about 25 minutes time. Both going through a bit of a transformation plan. Home retail, 72 million. Up three percent. Tothere are plans to talk General Electric about the sale of one of its businesses. We have an update. Berlin following this story. We have the official numbers. 12. 35 aliennd billion is what they are offering. It is very interesting to look at a couple of things. Thisal electric said that would increase its earnings immediately. Interestinge an story that came out on bloomberg overnight. It is looking at the motivations of why General Electric is making such a big push. It is because of the services. They build the Electricity Power generation equipment. The margins on the industrial 0 , whichcan be up to 3 is more than doubled the margin for General Electric overall. From the point of view of alstom, they say that they would use the money they get from General Electric to cut debt to make payments to shareholders. They say that it would use these proceeds to strengthen its transport is this. Trains,e these tgb extremely fast trains. Something it would not necessarily get from semiens. Story. Are part of the they have been doing some of the m a on the side. They have been doing something involving rollsroyce. Is in talks to buy rollsroyces energy business. It makes gas turbines. Iemens overnight said that it will bid for alstom. Only if it gets the Financial Information from alstom. Alstom has indicated that they will give that information to siemens. They are leaving the door open. The share price is going to start trading again were the First Time Since last week. Thank you very much. Move itsys is set to overseas division into a bad bank of bad assets. Everybody is doing it, arent they . The bad bank taking the assets that you do not want. Separate entity. It is not just a commodities business. Revenues dropped by only three percent. Macro Interest Rates skew inventory that are torturing your capital. Commodities business over there, that is something that they are paring back. We really have to come up with an answer here. The americanhave mortgage rod ochs. It is the quadrant distances. European Retail Assets and some American Mortgage assets as well. We have some news on some changes at the top. We do. This goes to a much rod or cultural issue. This is not just in the british press. Around, thereng were strings of people lining up to be rate that board. It looks like skip mcgee is going. This is an incredibly important moment for barclays. Especially barclays usa, which is essentially lehman. They bought Lehman Brothers during the crisis. Dealmaker. He is the blood of wall street. He has paid 9 million coins. They do nothe sit well. Skip mcgee has stepped on it. He said that he focuses on climbed and the bank focuses on regulation. If you go behind the story, there is a lovely piece saying, should it to be do more with the fact that tom king and Goldman Sachs thehey were corunning investment bank, were they . Sole position. That may be why mcgee is leaving. I am not saying that skip mcgee is being jumped over. If you dont get what you want, which is the top job, sometime any point inere is me staying or am i worth more to someone else . The criticism is that he is not an Investment Banking man. You are getting rid of a good talent. Are you getting rid of it or are you driving talent away . This bad bank could be worth up to 8000 jobs. Part of the issue in the united thees of america, last year issue was that the talent was leaving barclays at twice the rate that it used to. The culture of lehman and the culture of barclays is at odds. It is the question of the west taking over the game. The game at some point will be unwatchable. It might be 2009. Citigroup did as well as rbs. Twitter disappoints. The stock was punished enough. She gives us the numbers in what we hope is more than 140 characters. Go for it. Story about growth or lack there of for twitter. 250 were increased to million. And you look at the rate of internally,users, everybody looks at their twitter account and they look at how many users they are adding. They are not doing very well. Six quarters ago, 185 million. A 25 yearoveryear growth. It slowed from 30 . The ceo recognizes that theyre having a problem. A are tweaking the site. They are adding photo sharing. He said that they are working to increase the value of the logged in experience. People are using their twitter accounts more frequently very 157 billion views. It is about the rate of growth. Has your twitter account increased since i have been appearing on your show . If the answer is no, you can fire me. I think i might need some further training to establish the answer to your question. Every time you mention twitter on this program, i get more followers. Keep on doing it. You are doing a good job. Ive probably doubled your users in this short show. You do not have that much pulling power. George clooney gets engaged, that has happened. I would say if George Clooney ever joins twitter, i will join. We will take a short break on the program. Alstom shares are due to start trading after being suspended on friday. We will see how the market reacts after they approve official talks with time for todays company news. Agreed tooperator has buy Pepco Holdings. That is according to people familiar with the matter. They may announce earlier this afternoon. Pepco services the washington metro area and the midatlantic. Er is proposing a deal for a consumer business. That is according to people with knowledge of the matter. Rose Royce Holdings has just confirmed that it is in talks to sell its power generating assets to siemens. Retooll would further the Energy Generation landscape. Ge and siemens work on competing offers for alstom. This is countdown. Shares are due to start trading in just over an hour. He is an analyst at sac so bank. He joins us from paris on how the markets might receive them. Thank you so much for joining us. Do you expect it to open up this morning there is plenty of news for investors to digest. How far is this battle going to run . Will this be built into the share price . High can expect very volatility of shares today. Week, remind you, last shares increased more than 10 . Exceed. E they will investors will welcome the bid of General Electric on the choice of the alstom board. We cannot forget about the other Company Behind this big. Mainis alstoms shareholder. He have to look at the shares. It is good news. Know about the deal is a very good thing for alstom. Is it sad to say that General Electric is now in the driving seat . They have entered talks. The door has been left open to siemens. What can siemens do to get back on an even keel with ge . Actually, what is going to happen in the next days is that siemens will ask to have access to Financial Information that General Electric hasnt. I believe that siemens will make a clean offer to alstom. Lets be honest. General electric is the company that will win this battle. General electric has the best projects for alstom. There is one issue when we look at siemens bid. Overlap on the problems than if they look for an agreement with General Electric. What about the governments role in all of this . Governments view on it. That influence the decisionmaking process . The government cannot control so much of a project. It is very bad. 2025 days. Such a company is going to be purchased by an american company. There is an agreement. We believe they will be and an agreement with alstom. This agreement will only happen after the open electric and election. The political point of view is as important as the economic point of view in this battle. Rollsroyce, the engine maker is in talks with siemens to sell its energy gas turbine business to siemens. Will that make up for the loss of the Alstom Energy business if ge does up winning that bid . Is that something for siemens . I do not think they will win this battle. Siemens is very afraid that General Electric is buuying alstoms energy unit. General electric will gain very Important Competitive assets and siemens will not be able to fight against General Electric in the open market. What is going to happen in the next days, i do not believe that siemens will win this battle. They will not be engaged. There will be a project. We will know more about it in the next the days. Siemens will not win. Tank you for joining us today. Trade cashlling to and assets to close the deal. We are heading to copenhagen for a live report. Welcome back to countdown. Proposing a deal for mercks consumer business. Joining us now is the bloomberg industry pharmaceutical analyst. What does bayer need to do to win this deal for mercks consumer business . Good morning. Whether it is an issue of what iner needs to do, it is cash terms of who is offering the best. What they can do is bid for the business and try to outbid bayer in terms of a catch bid. What bayer can do, they have an Animal Health unit. Is some Critical Mass in terms of revenues. They could offer that to merck and joined up as a joint venture if merck were to take it out right, the combined entity would be the biggest Animal Health industry that there is in terms of sales. At would allow them to potentially leverage that and get a value for shareholders. Another company that we are watching. They are said to be considering a sale. What do we know . Not a lot, to be honest. It is difficult to see if you look at the size of our jan allergan. Some of them have talked about it being a major merger. It does not fit what they were speaking about yesterday in the analyst discussions. What we have been hearing as a fimor is that potentially sano is looking to get some of its assets out of the is this. To sell what we call established products. Thank you very much for joining us. Ok. He are going to have analysis of home retail earnings this hour. We will speak with the ceo next. Welcome back. We are going to start it right here with the dollaryen. The yen gaining against the dollar. The bank of japan doing nothing on the monetary side of things. They have left their forecast for inflation unchanged. It looks like a central bank that is going to do more. Not really. You see the dollar getting weaker. You are seeing eurodollar. Coming back just a little bit in the last 20 minutes. We saw the euro come back towards 1. 38. A little bit weaker. Taken higher, but below expectations. The eurozone could actually disappoint. Because of yesterdays german number, it looks like we may get another disappointment. If we do, it will pile on the pressure on the ecb. Are the bloomberg headlines this hour. Barclays is planning to use its Commodities Division into a bad bank. The unit will be overseen by the cohead of the investment banks. Goldman sachs will be overseeing the issident Vladimir Putin warning that are their actions against russia could jeopardize a deal with u. S. And eu companies in the energy sector. Earlier, bloomberg spoke with the former italian prime minister. He said that the growing european will net a willingness to take on russia over its actions in ukraine. This is a much different urope is not is e longer in the comfortable state of mind believing that it is a secure place. After the european elections. This will be a powerful countriesr of the willing to try to put this together. A Senior International olympic midi official said that preparation is the worst that they have ever seen. They say that the situation is critical. They say that the preparation is even worse than in athens where venues were still being built on the eve of the event. Over to you. Home real Home Retail Group results have just been released. John joins us live from the london stock exchange. Good morning, sir. Take you for joining us. One aspect of your statement that leapt out at me was the line that said that you are still assuming a subdued consumer environment. This surprised me. Given the earnings and the improved sales, given data from the brc which showed that Consumer Confidence was at a sevenyear high. Why are you being cautious with your outlook . We are in a lot of markets with almost 1100 Stores Across the whole of the u. K. Based a pretty broad retailer. Until we start to see this across the broad markets we are in and the categories we are in, we are hesitant to get too excited. Do you think we are close to seeing that improvement or throughng the pull between the confidence and the spending habits by your customers . That is what we are looking forward. We are starting to see some impact of housing. So many of their categories, rooms, they are related to the Housing Market. Generally we see a bit of a lag. We started to see some benefit in southeast england. We have not started to see the benefits of the improved data metrics across the rest of their stores. Doesnt worry that the improvement that you are starting to see might not see it through . They are worrying that a bubble is forming and the bank of angle and could take measures to bring down that bubble . I know the rest of the country is different to the southeast. How are you reading the Housing Market as a whole in the u. K. . Cautiously. Lan it is difficult for us to have confidence in one direction or another. We are happy with the confidence and the recent indicators. We will continue to plan cautiously in the southeast and the rest of the u. K. 72 of youresents sales. How is the fiveyear . Ransformation plan progressing this is the plan to reinvent yourself as the Digital Retail leader. But it is very good. We are very happy with the performance of cross last year. We reported our seventh consecutive positive quarter. Good impact and progress on our transformation plans in the area of digital experiences and the area of new stores. We have a new Digital Concept store. Work and fulfillment options whether it is Home Delivery options. Our brands work on including work on our own brands. We are making really Good Progress i naturally and against the strategic land. We are happy about the way that it fits. We have a good shot at meeting our longterm financial goals. Agilee me an idea of this concepts stored. It seems to be going well. 5, even 103, 4, years. Store going argos to look like when the consumer what the consumer expects seems to be changing at such a quick pace right now . It is changing at a quick pace. The Digital Concept stores, our current view of what a store might look like in the digital future. It assumes that the Digital Channels are the primary way we interface with customers. We will offer to customers very large ranges. We will have them home delivered in a very short time cycle. The stores are modern. They are cleaner. We have replaced the paper and ets that allow customers to experience a different version. The cues are easier. The product is plays are flexible. Productthe point of selection and customer service, not as places for customers to spend a lot of time and consider. That represents a good model for a digital future. Our customers seem to think so, too. Had really positive customer response to those stores. We have plans to extend that across other parts of the u. K. You have barely than a month or so. What is the biggest challenge that you face heading up home ringtail retail right now . The biggest challenge is trying to anticipate Customer Behavior changes. Ia am new to the role. Argose been the m. D. Of for more than two years. I will spend some time understanding my new responsibilities, ensuring the continued success of argos. We need to do a good job with that and have the new store be successful. Then i need to consider and learn about the Current Group strategy and structure and learn about its priorities. That is what i will spend the next several months on. I am optimistic about the future of home retail. I am optimistic about the work that we will have to do. Good to talk to you for the first time. I look forward to speaking to you. Thank you very much. Lets talk about the oil sector. Fromt fell three percent the higher cost and lower production. One of the bigger risk to the companys as this is a joint venture with russia. Shell has very big interests in russia. That is one of the reasons why a representative from shell met with resident food. President putin they said that we continue to keep a presence here. This was just as everyone was theyeting up sanctions. Want to up capacity i about the two percent. This is really important to them. He got president putins support to do that. This is essential to their Business Plan. What about other geography that is in focus . Shell has been looking at ukraine. They did a deal with the Central Government in ukraine a wild back to explore and develop gas in the east of the country in the very place we are seeing a lot of the turmoil right now. Sites ise expiration right next to an area controlled by separatists. It is not far away from where we saw a prorussia military sees a government to link. A very difficult situation. They were off the crimean coast. They were talking to central authorities about that as well. That is a de facto part of russia. We will talk later in the morning about their russian exposure. Waiters do not just carry trays in restaurants anymore. They also raced through the streets in argentina. It is time for hot shots. A look at some of the day. Visitors are sinking their teeth into the first of its kind crocodile farm in iran. Reading crocodiles was forbidden under islamic law until 2006. A Company Started the Business Plan of producing crocodile leather bags, and purses to sell to snappy dressers at home and abroad. First shepherd dog festival was held at the National Forest park. 200 chinese shepherd dogs appeared on the catwalk show. Dog lovers came to show off their pets and exchange experiences. It is a part of activities meant to entertain businesses during the upcoming mayday holiday. Hundreds of waiters took part in an annual race in argentinas capital trying to walk as fast as possible without walking knocking over models and drink glasses on their trays. Men and women competed separately. Whoever finished first without messing up their tray won the competition and was awarded 12,000. Welcome back. I am mark martin. Are your hand steady . I am not sure i am up to that challenge. 12,000. That must be a big achievement. One of the u. K. s biggest clothing retailers says that it expects profits to rise even faster. Sales could rise as much as 9. 5 this year. That is compared to the previous forecast between four percent eight percent. Caroline hyde is on the street to do a little bit of window shopping, i mean cover the retail story. This business is sounding pretty confident this morning. They are sounding confident. Salesg their fouryear and profit target. They got off to a very good start in the First Quarter. S improved for their brands, up almost 11 . The business is outperforming. They are not particularly confident in terms of raising their sales targets. It is the good weather that has helped. People fromany going to the stores. The First Quarter of this year was far more rainy, but not cold. It has been called up to three back ofhigher on the that confidence. In terms oformed profit last year. They are still the biggest clothing retailer in the u. K. Soon usurp in terms of the biggest clothing retailer. I have nailed online profit. Iney just added their onl presence. At stores such as these, you can click and collect. They are adding more and more space. Making them architecturally more beautiful. Next is off to a very good start to the year. Consumer confidence is rising to a sevenyear high. I will have things back to you. Caroline hyde reporting. A different strategy eating employed. No celebrity endorsements. Not their strategy. Minutes to the open. 11 minutes to be precise. We have all of your market themes coming up. Welcome back to hun countdown. We are minutes away from the start of trading. We have had results from Oil Companies. That is at the center of a adult. Battle. I have seen calls up 20 despite the merger and acquisition news flowing through the equity markets, the actual ftse is expected to be soft on the apron. Investors are starting to look at the bigger numbers. A very busy week in terms of economic data. You have the european flash cpi number. You have the Federal Reserve later. Then we have the payrolls. People are wondering why the equity markets are stalling at these levels. There are plenty of deals going through. It is still the heart of the earnings season. So far, if you look at across the pond, expectations have been a lot lower. Stocks have exceeded expectations. As we get through earnings season, Merger Acquisition news, this is all good. Can we sustain these levels Going Forward . If you look at stocks on an individual basis, you have a names today. You have bnp paribas, which is beaten expectations. You have the litigation issues that they have got. 1. 8 billion they have set aside. They could far exceed that. We have the shell numbers out today. Looking a little better there. A little improvement therefore shell. numbers are slightly better. Central banks look like they will continue to reign it in. They are expected to taper tonight. Is there enough momentum to push equity markets beyond their recent highs. Its failed on several occasions to push toward highs. Regularly throughout this year that it seems to have lost momentum. The momentum behind equities has stalled somewhat. Haveoking ahead to glaxo, the earnings been overshadowed by the multilayered drug deal week . Ts announced last that was a huge deal by any made by any measure. The sector is going through some pretty seismic changes. The deal that glaxo made with novartis will be a focus. That shift away from pharma to other areas is very important. Thank you very much. That sets us up very nicely for our glaxo numbers. That will do it for us. We will see you tomorrow. Welcome to on the move. I m as connie at bloombergs European Headquarters in london, infra francine lacqua. Just moments away from the start of european trading, we have everything covered from companies to currencies. Here with me now, ryan chilcote, Jonathan Ferro and david tweed. Jon, lets kick it off with you. Futures indicating just a nudge lower. What is going to be the focus of the day . Euro zone inflation. Last month, 0. 5 . This is the First Reading for the month of april, expecting it to bounce back to 0. 8 . There is a risk that it comes under that point. I think the spanish numbers we are waiting for the spanish gdp and the retail sales to come out. As soon as we get those, we will flash those at the bottom of the screen. David tweed, you have got the stock of the day. Alstom, we are waiting for it to open. It looks like they have agreed to begin formal discussions with ge. That is right. Alstom stock indicated up about 20 . Also watch bouygues, its main shareholder. One interesting thing that came out of this formal offer was the comment from General Electric that it expects to see net job growth in those french businesses that it has made proposals to buy. That might help it clinch the deal. We will get back to you as soon as we get