Is not bad. We were expecting that much. Existing home sales have been a problem for the past year or so. We have not gotten what we want to see. We are seeing a much better than we expected number for the month. Singlefamily homes posted a fairly strong gain. The supply of the market dropped significantly, of course this is wintertime, 24. 1 months to 5. 1. Prices will continue to rise. Well over the 5 million mark. That is good news as well. This will set the stage for reasonable 2015 if we continue. Pending home sales have suggested we will. We start off with good news. Michael mckee in new york city with the latest on u. S. Economic data. More coming to you from switzerland. Plus, a special guest. Well be looking for that legacy of the late saudi King Abdullah. And his nephew. We will talk about the legacy of his uncle, and stephanie, answering questions about the future of saudi oil policy. Lets get your first to guests. He is the managing director and coowner of the boston celtics. Steve miller, the chairman of aig. Here we are wrapping up the last couple of days in davos. When we are back in the u. S. Everyone is feeling great about the economy. Three days into davos what do you think the confidence is like . The United States is doing well. It is separated by regions. The United States has fixed the banking crisis. Our banks have been solid for two or three years, and you see that in the performance of stocks and companies. In europe it is more dicey. They have gone into quantitative easing. When you have 19 different countries, it is hard to get a common voluntary policy. Thisll work in me shortterm, but they have to make changes to make it work in the long term. Do you believe the quantitative easing will cause of will stop a problem we have had for years. It is pushing on a string where the Interest Rates are low enough it is an impediment to investments. There is a lot of structural reform in europe that has to take place before businesses will want to make investments. Are there cultural obstacles as well . Michael dell was here yesterday. I asked why dont you come to a place like. Paguuca davos. He said one of his takeaways that europeans tended to worry a lot. Do you think they worry more than americans. That americans are more optimistic and interested in taking risks and that is why the u. S. Economy has come out of the hole faster . That is a. Europeans tend to be more cautious and are afraid of failure and less likely to take risks. That is a total generalization. Would you come to davos to learn . To meet with investors and find out what is happening globally in terms of growth and Monetary Policy. We have 1000 people. We have taken the consulting model. In todays world you need to understand the macro. What is going to happen with Monetary Policy . This is a hotbed of figuring that out. What michael dell was saying about coming here. It is once a year and you have an incredible dose of what people are thinking about, are worried about, and are hoping for. It changes so much from yeartoyear. Theyre worried about geopolitical risks. That is overshadowing underlying good economic fundamentals. Will it make you change course in any way . After these four days when you go home and make different decisions . I just came from a conference with a bunch of Technology Leaders talking about future. But came through was how much the younger people, the employees of corporations care about the impact of who you work for on our society. It is about sustainability, Environmental Concerns to you by that . Do you buy that . I hear it all the time but i still see kids becoming Investment Bankers and working 120 hours a week. You live in new york. I think the attitudes have changed. If we dont come across that way we will become irrelevant. A lot of talk about india. There is a little bit of a unity and all of the countries with the terror that has happened. The situation in france. I am optimistic that we will work together. To fight the terrorism. There is a renaissance in india. The finance minister is here. They are pointing toward major reforms and it could be a great investment area. I need to take you back to new york for breaking news. I will take you to scarlet fu. Box has begun trading at 20. 20 a share. It is reaching a high during trading of 21 point 02. Piercing the 21 level. This was a company that priced yesterday at 14 of piece. It is a sizable gain of 20 . Excuse me. It is a 45 increase. This is a small float. 10 of the outstanding shares are trading in the open market. After hedge fund took a big side it is only a 9 float. Ill be speaking with boxs ceo levy. Once again, the stock is trading at 20. 80. Quite a bit at its ipo and the high was 21. 02. Thank you, scarlet. Lets go back to the steves. A number of people have expressed concern about the strength of the u. S. Dollar. You are active. In your case at aig, in your Case Portfolio companies. Are you concerned about the u. S. Dollar . We cannot control that. I would be worrying. You cannot control it. We use techniques to hedge and borrow in currencies so we balance it out. The good news about private equity is we have a longterm is. We are not hostage to the today currency moves because we have a five10 year policy. Are you hostage . The way corporations deal with it, is on your Balance Sheet you hedge it. So it doesnt kill you overnight. Where you position your manufacturing, if you are a manufacturing business, you cannot change that overnight. You need to make sure you are well positioned and you cannot be too focused on a day today. What about the impact of american competitive goods and services in american dollars overseas . We have countervailing factors. Energy cost. That is 3040 . As the cost is going down you can still sell products overseas. If he gets too strong it will slow imports slow exports. What part of your business are you most build up on this year . We have a great young squad. We really stepped back. We are in five or six areas of the economy. Long trend terms and Tech Financial Services and payments. As steve was saying the new generation, cell phones are ubiquitous. Another 2 billion people having cell phones and being connected to the internet is a huge number that will change the way things are done. It will Award Companies that have global scale. Steve, i would ask you a question. I know you have been thinking about it. Metlife suing the u. S. Government over its designation. Aig was summarily designated. If they didnt sue. Is that a great idea, or a crazy idea . I should not be commenting on litigation and carried out by a competitor. I wont. We are comfortable with the fact we were designated and that the law was aimed at large institutions. We get a second set of eyes at aig on our case. It is a Good Housekeeping seal of approval. If the fed is ok with what we are doing in structuring our talents sheet we are fine. Metlife doesnt see it that way. We will see how their litigation comes out. How much are the nets going to go for . The nba is fantastically managed and is a global game. Theres a huge upside. I think the nets will go for a very large price. The two steves. Steve miller and steve paguuca. It is great to have you with us. You are watching a special edition of Market Makers davos edition. Will be talking about oil and the legacy of King Abdullah. Stay with us. Today the world is honoring the memory of saudi King Abdullah who died yesterday after a decade on the throne. His successor is his younger brother. He will continue with the late kings policies. With us on the phone is another member of the royal family. Hence please allow me to begin our conversation by expressing our condolences for your loss. I know how much you loved your late uncle. I can say on behalf of bloomberg, that we are sorry for your loss and to our deepest condolences. I appreciate it. Thank you. Your uncle was a reformer. What can we expect from king salman. s mission is not accomplished. They will continue his path. They have been with him for the past two or three years. Everything he was doing, they were completely on board. King salman will continue on that path without any doubt. If they continue on the path, what can we expect to see . On the political front, the economic front, and the social front there are challenges. They need to be faced headon. I let these challenges, i believe the king and prince are up to it. Do not get me wrong, we are not saying it is easy. Especially with the pressure we have. That will put pressure on the saudi budget and our political growth. There is no doubt that the duties and responsibilities that King Abdullah and his deputy will be facing. I think they are up to it. What you think they will do about oil prices . Clearly, the price of oil reduced by 50 . It will affect saudi arabia. Clearly, saudi arabia has areas. Ive been pushing the government for one year to redo, diversify and establish funds and it activate world funds. I think we are to hear voices of approval to activate that project. That is only one path that saudi arabia can take. There are many other paths that they could take. Like encouraging tourism, and the and the exhortation of other minerals. There are many things that saudi arabia can do to fill the gap from the reduction of the price of oil. Your Royal Highness, do you believe that king salman supports the decision not to cut oil prices . Prince salman was sharing at meetings that he approved that decision. King abdullah has been saying that for the past year. When the prince was sharing in the council to approve that decision. I assure you that this is a decision that they are on board with. Is saudi arabia happy that oil is trading at 45 a barrel . There is no way that any country who depends on a commodity that 90 of the budget depends on it, can be happy. Since the oil price has crashed so rapidly it is something we must face. It is inevitable. No, we are not happy, but it is something you must face headon without any hesitation. If youre not happy, widely bit this way . Saudi arabia on its own taking over influencing a decision by opec to cut production. That could change the dynamics for oil instantly. Why leave it at 45 . What you said is not very correct. If saudi arabia reduces production by one million or 2 Million Barrels there could be a small spike in the price of oil. Other companies who are desperate will fill the gap. In the medium to longterm the price at 45 will inevitably cause some oil rigs in that state and other places in the world to be an effective and uneconomical. The supply of oil at 45 will impact us somehow. After that, the fact that china, india germany, and other countries will have Economic Growth come back and be higher than it is now. These two events will be less supply and more demands though cause the price to go up more. I dont say it will go 200 or above, but i dont think well ever see the price at 100 again. What you say we will not exceed 100 dollars . There are many countries including iran and russi, that depend on a price of oil closer to 100 or above 100 a barrel. Remember that iran is not producing for capacity. The five countries plus one would pump more barrels into the equation. There is another pressure on the supply. The price of 100 plus was a liberation and we will never see it again. The price of 45 or 50 may also be a liberation in the downward trend. I think the price will stabilize between these two. So is the decision to maintain opec production and effort to drive marginal production in the United States out of business . I dont think it is that explicit. I think the fact that we kept the protection where it is if we entered if we reduced production in saudi arabia or in other countries other countries would fill the gap. The logic behind that is, yes, some oil rigs and others that are below the 45 dollars or 50 range would have to be stopped. On economical grounds. Prince mohammed is now in line to become king of your country. What does that say about saudi arabias direction . King salman has appointed today to be the third in command in saudi arabia. That shows that saudi arabia is in full force. In the old generation, to the third generation. There now the grandsons. I think this proves that saudi arabia is on track to have tranquility, stability. It is a transition of power in the second generation, to the third generation. Your Royal Highness, king ss king salman does he have the same passion for the advancement of women in saudi arabia . King abdullah, king salman and Prince Mohammed i know them very well. They are very passionate about it. With the exception of emotional distress, will there be any more impacts on the country . Can you repeat the question . With the exception of the personal loss because of the death of the king, will there be any other impacts we should be aware of . I think the transition was very smooth today. We have just buried King Abdullah. One hour from here, we have we will be going to the royal court to pay our allegiance to king salman into the prince. The king dies, and then long live the king. The transition was very smooth. Your Royal Highness when the succession moves to the next generation that you described, prints prince bin nayef . We went saudi arabia to be very assimilated in the new world order. We still have some weaknesses that we have to work on. We will say the truth. We have to face political, economic, economic, and social questions. I think that saudi arabia is on track to work on all of these fronts. May with the new generation, and the younger generation, who the prince represents, i think the process can be sped up to our ideal situation. Prince alwaeed thank you again and we extend our condolences. That was pricne alwaeed bin talal. When we return the Liberty Global ceo. Stay with us. I am scarlet fu at the breaking news desk. The shares were halted from trading in fedex when it fell to 177 and 10 sent. The company is reaffirming its outlook. It says the outlook is continued economic moderate growth. And moderate net benefits from the drop in fuel benefits. This is after ups came out and in the Fourth Quarter and said that it would not be up to snuff because of the underperformance of its domestic segment. That that expense meant a lower revenue in profit for the Fourth Quarter because they wanted to get packages out on time. That it is halted from trading at last check. A check on box the data storage company. It is up high 71 with a high of 24. 73. It was priced at 14 last night. We will be speaking with mr. Levy and about 10 minutes on his companys decision to go public in the markets after a year of waiting for the right time. Thank you. We are in switzerland at the World Economic switzerland at the World Economic forum. The Worlds LargestInternational Cable company has been gobbling Companies Left and right. Liberty global appears to have its eye on content companies, not just distributors. Here is michael freeze Michael Michael fries. I wouldnt talk about the news we heard last night. In talks to buy o2. Would you think . Consolidation of European Companies are inevitable. It is inevitable that it is happening in most cou ntries already. Bt is acquiring everything everywhere. We have a pretty big 3 million mobile sub in the u. K. It is a competitive market. Does valuation apply to a deal like that, or any other consolidating play. What is it mean for your company . Mobile stocks are saying and uptake not because of the m a activity, but because people think it is hit bottom in europe. It is easing off broadbent consumption on mobile devices, that is escalating. They see blue skies for mobile stocks and operations. The valuation doesnt mean much because we trade at a healthy multiple and a historic high one. And boss content offerings seem to mean a lot. What type of businesses are you interested in . We articulated for verticals. Sports in core markets, and in some instances free to air broadcast networks to expand our reach. We looked at production companies. We own a company with discovery that makes Reality Television and scripted series. We were looking at overthetop assets and programming. We are aggressively begin to aversion we are aggressively moving into a version of netflix. Preempting netflix by offering it for free. The need for cable consolidation to become global. What is that mean for you . We have built scale in europe. Our network is in 15 million homes. We 7 million subscribe. Our businesses need scale to compete with giants like google. Do you see yourself competing with google . On a level. Youtube is a huge part of our traffic. He went to an end date the way consumers need. We need to be bigger. That means bigger markets like europe, and potentially global. A global scale is hard to achieve in our case, not impossible, but not easy. It starts with national reach. Was he joking when he said Liberty Global might by comcast . He doesnt joke. He said, why not . We are growing business. I dont think he was serious that he never says never. From your perspective how healthy do you think the european economy is . Our top five countries are doing better than average. We are fortunate to be in countries like the u. K. , germany, switzerland, austria, belgium, and holland. Well see it the way others do. People dont disconnect rod band. Thats not the first thing. That piece of their income is important. Connectivity is critical. We are borrowing at very low rates. Financing at three and three quarters. This monetary easing helps us as a corporate to borrow at low rates. Where do you go next . If you can borrow so cheaply. If global consolidation is something that your boss is looking at . Where do you go . 95 of