Mark welcome to countdown, i am mark barton. Caroline Caroline Hyde. Mark the Worlds Largest luxury Goods Company lvmh has had a sales search. Sales surge. Manus equipment makers join the end and a m a action. Caroline it is a deal brewing and industry rife with dealmakaking. It is a deal that has been speculated about four years. Could be buying alcatel no kia could be buying alcatel. The deal could be announced as soon as this week. It would boost nokias presence in china and the United States. You have 1. 3 billion mobile subscribers. This is a real area of strength for alcatel. But their Wireless Network area would also bring to key players in the United States market Verizon Communications and at t. The contract that they have bring in 25 of their overall revenue. Key areas of growth. We could see them did not only for the wireless area of alcatel but also for alcatel as a whole making it the secondbiggest player. It would be the secondbiggest Network Equipment maker in the world after erickson. Lets take a look at whether no kia nokia could even afford alcatel. We would see a 34 premium over alcatels market value. What we have to keep in mind is that with the french will the french Government Back this. Would it back a deal for the wireless assets or for nokia to buy alcatel in its entirety. Previously they had said they dont want any m a and had blocked key corporate mergers in the country. They are trying to protect french jobs especially in research and development. Nokia has the cash as they sold their device unit last year and completed that seven and a half billion dollar deal to sell off the devices they made. But also, there is now talk of selling their maps unit. Suddenly this fuel the share price rally yesterday. Lets have a look at what really was going on in terms of the maps unit. Nokia is refocusing. The chief executive is really honing down on what nokia provides. 90 of the money comes from the networks area. They also have a research and Development Licensing area. But one key player is the maps unit. Valued at some 2 billion euros overall it could generate 2 billion overall if it sells this area off. Four out of five navigation tools in cars uses the maps unit to navigate. Who could be interested . It could be over could be uber. Even german carmakers have knocked on their door asking about this particular asset. Theyve also been looking at private equity groups to potentially sell the maps area. That would bring in 2 billion euros would help in paying for alcatel, whatever size they buy. Remember, they bought it for 8 billion in 2008. Quite clearly, this is an area that has lost some of its overall strength. They had difference in strategy as they lost their had last year. Back to you guys will stop to you guys. Mark just a few weeks to go before the u. K. Election. What will their plans mean for the economy . Jamie murray joins us now. Lets kick off with Economic Data today. Will the u. K. Escape deflation once again . Jamie roughly 5050 i suppose. What you see is a wide range of views. Some people see it going up. The reason for the dispersion of views as people dont know how the oil price will feed through or continue feeding through the prices. We know that fuel prices are no longer falling so that will not be pulling the inflation rate down any further. You want to keep an eye on what is happening with that. Manus some significant risks year rj . Arent they . We have had people saying were not a very Productive Society and we are losing our productivity here in the u. K. The debate is how much slack is left. I suppose the second risk is that if you have zero inflation does that push into wage negotiation . Jamie the committee is currently quite divided on where they see the risks of those Wage Negotiations. You have the one side which seems to be quite can turn quite concerned, and you have most of the other members of the committee on the other side. I think the view that inflation will have a significant effect on Wage Negotiations is mainly a marginal one on the committee. In april, we will find out that is when 40 of pay settlements are in the United Kingdom. Caroline what are all the implications of these figures feeding into the election . Jamie we have done some analysis on what the partiesplans are. For labours plans, they are offset 121 one to one. Labor would cut spending a lot less than the tories would. These are nontrivial manus labour and tory would be 100 Million Pounds of part 100 billion pounds apart in terms of spending. Jamie that has applications for the guild market and Monetary Policy. If you dont cut spending as much, you dont need as much monetary offset to stabilize the market. Mark jamie, thank you for joining us today. Bloomberg intelligence chief economist. We are hosting the Grant Thornton is this Election Debate, live from the British Museum. Anna edwards will moderate. Liberal democrat shadow business secretary vince cable and nick foles make their cases to the British Business community. Manus rushes lifting a ban on the delivery of a Missile System to iran, drawing objections from the u. S. And israel as new talks continue. The timing of the withdrawal could give russia a commercial line to iran if economic sanctions are lessened against the islamic republic. The Russian Foreign minister said the ban is on a voluntary basis to begin with. Lavrov we are convinced that at this stage there is no longer need for such an embargo. Manus lets get straight to hans nichols who is in berlin. When you look at this, it is the timing of it. It is spectacular in terms of what pugin is doing pugin is doing. Hans what you have from lavrov is him saying that this was done in the spirit of goodwill. They insisted it is about stimulating progress in those very Nuclear Talks that concluded, at least limited early concluded, on april 2 in switzerland. What lab rock is insisting is that these missiles will not be pointed at israel. The s300 is a defensive weapon that cannot serve offense of purposes and will not jeopardize the security of any country, including of course israel. Hans the u. S. Were pretty measured in their criticisms. What both sides agree on is that the 2010 you and weapons ban does not include a ban on the s300. What you are really seeing, and you saw this overnight in washington, is that republicans in congress are seizing on this issue to talk about obamas and russias intentions in this negotiation. Many are saying this is just about russia seeking a commercial advantage when the sanctions are lifted. Ultimately this will be decided when these talks reconvene, if you do have a deal by the end of june on Irans Nuclear framework. The foreign minister, mr. Lavrov and his counterpart work here in berlin for talks on ukraine. That wrapped up last night ahead of this g7 summit in germany that starts later today. Manus what actually came out of the Foreign Ministers meeting in berlin . It us a bit of a context on that. Hans it went five hours long. There is a joint statement from all four parties. That is france, germany, russia, and ukraine. They expressed grave you grave concern about the situation in ukraine. There are separate Russian Media reports that ukraine and russia had agreed to some sort of limit on small caliber weapons in eastern ukraine. Perhaps the most negative out of all this was the German Foreign minister who talked about the ceasefire being close to being in tatters and a real danger of an escalation of violence. Manus hans nichols in berlin. Caroline lets take a look at some of the other top stories. Greece has denied a report that it is preparing to default. A paper reported that the country would withhold payments if no debt deal is reached with creditors. Meanwhile, the Singapore Dollar climbed after the central bank kept its policy unchanged. That is following unexpected monetary easing back in january. Florida senator marco rubio has announced that he is running for president in 2016. The republican candidate is a son of cuban emigrants and at 43, would be that u. S. s youngest and first latino president. The Worlds Largest luxury goods made her goods maker lvmh shares are up 30 this year, helped in part by a weaker euro. Mark you can join the conversation on twitter today. Tell us what you think of the show, the stories you want to hear more about. Manus is t manuscranny caroline is carolinehyde and i ma markbartontv. It is what hundred and 50, so it is actually conservative relative to the imf. Caroline the economy is remaining the focal point. If you have been renting, now perhaps they want you to buy well stop manus we are looking at deflation. We will ask our next guest that could do to the pound. They with countdown mark welcome back to stop welcome back. What could deflation mean for the pound. A senior fx strategist at ubs is here. They think inflation will move towards the 2 target. Does the deflation mean anything for the Exchange Rate or is it a purely symbolic move . I think the bank of england had seen much of this coming. In a speech earlier in march they actually started talking about Exchange Rate passthrough. That was generating an excessively strong currency. I think the bank of england will welcome that. They will go back to the language saying that it is more transitory right now. Caroline today, we also have bank lending. Talk to was a little bit about how this is feeding into what is happening in the United Kingdom . Geoffrey one of the things that the eu is trying to do with qe is forcing european money out to other markets. The most liquid currency with a nonnegative yield curve. Maybe the u. K. Has actually enjoyed a bit too much money coming in which is generated strong sterling as well. It is kind of unwelcome. Within the eurozone itself, the survey does show the conditions are continuing to ease and that complements the signs of recovery were seeing in the eurozone right now. If you look at pmis reflation is happening in the eurozone. Manus on the eurozone debate we have reports on greece preparing for default and greece denying those reports. The market is short of euros. If the markets every balanced in terms of Central Banks, what is the debate gekko what is the debate . Geoffrey so many clients have asked us that if the market is too short on euros, but we put out the valuation argument saying that the euro is probably too cheap right now. That is a force as well. The second question that clients will ask is if the ecb will and qe early. I think they are committed to this and their outlook is predicated on seeing out this program. Greece could throw some spanners into the works. Manus we will ask you a little bit later what you will be looking out for. Caroline welcome back and still with us is the senior fx strategist at ubs. We have had a big week in terms of the eurozone and we have a ecb meeting tomorrow basically expecting nothing more to happen in terms of Interest Rate cuts. What are we going to get from mario draghi . Geoffrey one big part of the central bank austrias is to extend a positive message. Centralbanks role is to extend a positive message. I think he will be asked about greece and he will try to be as diplomatic as possible. It always get down to the politics at the end of it especially when it comes to tricky questions. I think other Central Banks such as sweden, norway, are looking for signs of adjustment. Sweden has done intermediate intermittent rate cuts and qe. No additional news from the ecb on easing side. They should be under no illusion that the ecb qe is not here to say. Manus more qe from the japanese . Geoffrey the next few inflation figures will be essential for japan because now we get clean numbers without the tax rise. If that starts to slip, then i think markets are looking for more qe enforced in the second half of the year. Fiveyear Inflation Expectations are still 1. 6, 1. 7. Not that great, especially when they said five years ago that they were watching qe to get to 2 . Yes, they can get that but is that healthy inflation . All you need is a seven recovery in oil prices and that will slice margins in japan. The dollar yen correlation could break. I think a stronger yen is because of oil and energy in general. Manus thank you very much jeffrey. Manus time to check in on the Foreign Exchange markets. It is 6 30 a. M. In london. The singaporean centralbank has decided not to soften the position in the monetary market. The Monetary Authority of singapore. Youre seeing quite a significant move on the day. You have the Singapore Dollar rising with the dollar falling. They have joined the australians, joined the indians in terms of just hitting the pause button in doing anything more with their currency or intervening. They tentatively their currency. The amount of business that is being done out there is nowhere near the normal levels. Last week, out of the g 10 currencies, there was only one above normal volume and that was the hong kong dollar. Singapore is hitting the pause button. Dollaryen, we also had this conversation with ubs. Dollar down, yen rising on the day. What you have is one of these advisors to mr. Abe says there is no need for the dollar to fall much further. It is going to come down to what they call clean numbers in terms of inflation guidance from japan over the next couple of months that will guide what happens next with the bank of japan. Sterling is down by 18 again. 1 8 again. Today, the bank of england will release the Consumer Price index. Has the bank of england dodged the deflation bullet . Will it hold off on raising rates in till next year . Back to you mark. Mark the International Monetary fund ahead of spring meetings on friday in washington has issued numbers today on the Global Economy. One german official says greece will be stuck on the sidelines at the meeting. An official says that last autumn a flash crash in u. S. Treasuries could happen again due to the changing nature of the u. S. Government debt market. The executive president of the Federal Reserve bank of new york urged investors and banks that a sharp intraday price move could be, more common. After citing concern he concerts citing could security concerns the lng plant in yemen halted supply. Google is getting ready for the eu to decide how to proceed with the fouryearold antitrust probe against the company. That is according to people familiar with the case. The eu has been investigating allegations that google discriminates against rivals in search results. You can find more on that story at bloomberg. Com. Caroline another day, another deal. Nokia is in advanced talks to buy assets from the other equipment maker alcatel. They need the approval of Francois Hollande first. Men well, we have heard about manuel, we have heard about this deal or a while, why now . This has been a rumor for a long time and it seems like now is the Perfect Timing for this. There are big discussions between nokia and alcatel on and off for the last few years and now they have seemed to come to terms. One of the biggest hurdles you mentioned was actually in the government of france, who was approached who was opposed to the transaction before because of jobs and research cuts that the transaction would imply. Now seems to be the Perfect Timing. We also have two companies that are in better shape than a few years ago. Nokia is in a much better position. Manus lets talk about the money. Nokia to do this deal might have to sell their maps business for about 2 billion euros. How would they do this deal . Is that integral to doing this deal . Manuel i think it is not crucial because they already have about 5 billion euros in cash. They would have a big chunk of cash to do the deal and they can structure the deal in shares too. I think it is not crucial to sell maps. That said, what they want to do is streamline the business and focus on telecommunications equipment, so i think what they really want to do is focus the strategy and that is why they have been struggling with the Maps Software unit for a while competing with the likes of google. They just realized that they prefer to focus on one business. Mark what further consolidation can we expect in the console it in the Tech Industry gekko . Manuel tech has been quite interesting because here in europe we have erickson, nokia alcatel. We have seen some deals in semi conductors, for instance, or other bits and pieces. I think tech as well as telecoms and media will see more deals in the years and months to come. Manus this gives them a bigger exposure to the u. S. Players and this is the crucial part. Netgear does not have the scale to win those per when those contracts at the moment but putting the two companies together gives them a better chance. Manuel i think Telecommunication Companies have been suffering a little bit. Their profitability has been suffering and they just need to combine, and that is one of the main reasons why they have been merging in the past few years. I think the exposure to the u. S. And to china will help n