European headquarters. Caroline francine we are getting data we have been expecting on the u. K. A little later on in half an hour. The pmi has fallen to 54. 1. We have had growth forecasts for gdp. It is pointing towards greener chutes. We have had a strong spanish number. The french number was actually surprising with the upside and the preliminary number picks up little bit on the confidence level. They german number was a miss and that is what is striking down the aggregate number of cross the eurozone. Francine we are keeping an eye on this and tomorrow is a huge day. Guy johnson on the last day of campaigning, no clear front runner with three polls overnight showing conservatives and labour neck and neck. Lets get to westminster and anna edwards. What is happening . Anna edwards the final day and tomorrow, the election takes place. There will be mps elected to the house of commons. Before that, the final push is underway. The candidates and leaders of the parties are visiting the hardest to defend locations where they hold seats and they want to protect the seats that they hold. That is the strategy the parties are adopting in the final day of campaigning. The messages we have been hearing have been drummed home today. David cameron says you can deliver stable government or risk it all with ed. They are fusing the arguments together around the economy and snp and labour. Ed will put working people at the center of things saying that government will only succeed when working people succeed. The liberal democrats walk the middle line. We heard they want to put a brain into labor or a heart into the conservatives. That was the catch phrase that nick clegg came up with. He says the reckless borrowing and the conservative ideological cuts are less likely with l d. We were showing the interactive map that we will be showcasing. We are seeing different results for voter intentions. What are they telling us . Anna edwards the polls not giving us many close. We have a populous poll and a ugov poll. We have 33 304 . Some of the spread betting is interesting. They forecast can service more seeds and computer models available put the conservatives 1020 seats at ahead of labor. It will come down to the numbers and how many seats the parties managed to retain and when. And win. Guy johnson the horse trading has begun already and we are hearing increasing reports of the parties try to put deals together. Maybe not overtly. Maybe covertly. May be it has maybe it has already started. We talked to the conservatives and labor and they refuse to a knowledge anything other than going for a majority. There will likely be a coalition. They are reporting that liberal democrats are scoping out what kind of price they want to extract from the conservatives to make a deal happen. One of the key policies was a referendum that runs counter to many of the instincts of the party. Equally, they will have to think about whether they want to go into the coalition with labor and whether snp is a force, even on the sidelines. Looking at the news overnight with regards to the Coalition Building and the discussion the leader of the party was in scotland and was trying to get back to some of the tubthum ping form. He says that what David Cameron was doing, even if he gets one more seat he says and gordon brown says that they plan to be kingmaker after the election will stop the election. Francine thanks. Guy Johnson Research on the prospects for the u. K. Economy and the director joins us now for more. The conclusion is . The week growth figures are likely a blip. We expect growth to return to a slightly more normal base for recovery in the next few quarters. We expect growth around 2. 5 for this year and going forward. That is we are seeing something that looks like a steady recovery and it does not make up are the huge amount of ground we have lost. Francine what about wage growth . It is beginning to come back to more normal levels. Again, the reverse is unprecedented in the last few years. There, that is the uncertainty. The final was the economy and what does the party do . We do not think they are doing much. Guy johnson, it has been guy johnson it has been stunning. There is intense fixation. It is not a problem in the shortterm. Guy johnson is a problem you cannot solve in the parliament. Is it a problem you cannot solve in the parliament . Francine it does not mean they are not looking at it. Guy johnson i have not heard if you think you can change the productivity story and you can deal with the economic problems the country faces, why have we not centered around everything and Everything Else is a derivative . That is why i am surprised. Guest i agree and, as you say, it is a good way to get people turned off. Thinking about education, skills, wage growth, and housing, it seems that they are proposing to make things worse and not better. It is tight. What are the main issues that the people care about . I think wage growth is what people are likely to care about and they should. It is reasonable to not care and it could have gone on under the parties for a long time. That stopped and we are now 14 15 poorer. You do not hear the parties say, what are we doing to restore growth . Guy johnson restoring productivity could take longer than that. Anything you do with graft, you are unlikely to get a political dividend from. You have to start sometime and you have to start somewhere. We know that governments have failed to build enough houses and it is bad for labor mobility. We have known what the answers are for 1015 years. They have not implemented the measures and particularly in the last few years, they have positively made things worse. Francine we are turning to the wider implications of the election and what they had to say about the impact. It is the rugby cup in the u. K. And the situation. I think we share a lot of common objectives and i think that the u. K. Should remain and we are positive on the outlook. Less attractive question market the European Union would have rules that would manage. It would be less more complex. The best solution is to remain in europe. I like talking about that. The reporter is with us. A couple of things are coming up. Lets talk about the Financial Services sector. It just depends. Do you have any sense of how it will work . One thing they have done is changed the regulatory regime. The implementation of some of the recommendations with ring fencing and investment banking. We are hearing about the business and the difficult tradeoffs. Regardless of political color, they will have to face it. The government has, to some extent, used the Banking Sector as a cash cow to raise taxes. There is good reason for this given the way the Financial Sector works. What does it do to the effectiveness of the Financial Sector . These are issues that governments will have to grapple with. Francine thank you for joining us. Guy johnson lets talk about the twitter question. It is straightforward and causing arguments. Should the party with the most seats form a government . What is a legitimate government . That is the and we will see you in a moment. Francine welcome back. We are live. Greece and the creditors failed to reach a deal. For more lets move on. Markets, lets start with you. Talk us through the latest and where we are on the negotiations. Things are going well until yesterday. The government through it out among the pigeons with a statement. They blame the creditors for failing to break the talks and the greeks say the imf is insisting on Economic Reforms and they would need to write it down at some point. They insist on the fiscal target. Now what is interesting is the time of this and the diplomatic push has positive signals coming out with progress and it came moments before the greek delegation was pleading the case in terms of liquidity constraints on the greek economy. It is pretty interesting. How are you likely to act . You can take a reasonable bet it will be increased once more and the question is under what condition. On the formal agenda it may be a key. The rising concern is too much exposure to greece and steps need to be taken to rein that in. If you were to cut, there would be a problem. If you adjust the haircut, that is something more technical and it has the same impact that greek banks have to have. That will be discussed today with no decision being taken. The discussion will be there. Can i read this as a political decision . If it turns out that haircuts are to be increased and that it will make it harder mri going to far when i talk about this as politics . The ecb would argue that the decision would have political implications. The rulesbased procedure and it dates back to late last year with the Greek Bailout Program perfectly on track. Clearly, it is not anymore. Maybe it is time to change the rules. Mario draghi has been cautious about making political statements or being seen as leading this debate in any way. Francine lets get back to you and the deal. What does it mean to the payments . The greek signal is the implication that they are too soon to get the money to the greek payments and no one is expecting any deal. That is just a positive statement about it. The signal is that it will be ok and the margins are getting thinner and thinner. As the margin gets thinner, it increases the likelihood. Guy johnson we will leave it there. Thank you for joining us from frankfurt. The approach is generating interest in sales. Stay with us. Francine microsoft is weighing up a possible bid. And have been bid and have been interested. Guy johnson Elliott Gotkine has more. Ellie gotkine it fits in with the strategy and they have revenue. Lets not get ahead of ourselves. They are not in discussions. Others have been approaching salesforce. What does seem to be clear is that salesforce is in play and they have investment ranks to work out the strategy. We have seen the rise in recent weeks and it is a big fight. They say they have zero interest in salesforce and oracle would disrupt the market and microsoft would seem to be a favorite. This is huge. Microsoft is no stranger to big deals. They tried to buy yahoo and it did not work out so far. The division is just over seven. Francine thank you so much. We are going to take a break. Guy johnson we are going to talk about the election tomorrow. Francine welcome back to the pulse. Were just getting breaking news from the u. K. Guy the average person in the country is not going to pay a great deal of attention but this is a really good number. 59. 5. The bulk of the british economy. The pound is turning around having sold off into this number. We are unchanged on where we are in the session. What we have seen is a little bit of turnaround. That number is better. The p. M. I. Numbers of late that is flattened a little bit. The g. D. P. Number. Over the duration of two or three years, the two numbers tend to coalesce a little bit. The g. D. P. That we have seen, a little bit of a blip on the downside. As we see the year progressing, the economy bouncing back on to a more stable and firm footing. Francine i know the vote on the street doesnt look at p. M. I. Services numbers. However, it is the last major piece of news before the election tomorrow. With 40 of voters still undecided, any little bit helps. 40 . It helps the toris. Guy lets talk about some of the other Bloomberg Top headlines. Beating up the governments spying powers. That follows the Charlie Hebdo terrorist attack in january. The two main parties have to combat terrorism. The bill goes before the senate. Francine today is the deadline day for benjamin net l. A. Ia huh to form a coalition government. Netanyahu to form a coalition government. Guy the European Commission will propose rules for the Technology Industry including implications for everyone. It will look at whether extra regulation is needed. The e. U. Is considering proposals to reign in Internet Companies just after google was accused of using its market power. Guy Francine Caroline hyde spoke with alsunny cooper. Im still very confident that were going to get this deal completed this spring. Looking forward to the people onboard and the brands onboard and make a sess of this business. It is really important. Really important in terms of cash returns for shareholders. Caroline how transform i. D. F. Will it be . Transformtive will it be . How much do you want to grow from a 10 market share in the states . We want to get back to 10. Therefore 10 is the first target to get back to. What i want to see from that business is steady show of growth. Were going to do things to build that sustainable quality share growth. Invest behind the brands and the capabilities and the sales force and make sure we build quality solid share growth in that market. Caroline when we look at your numbers, it is about profitability. Do you ever envision a day where we will see a pickup in volumes . I think for the moment it is more around decline rates. You can see that coming through in a number of markets in the first half. But no, i dont necessarily see a growth in volume. What is important for imperial to do is to find where Growth Opportunities are. We have small shares. U. S. Is one of them. We look to build those shares over time. Given our scale in the world, even though you may not see a macro environment of growing volumes. Guy that is alison keeper speaking to Caroline Hyde exclusively. Lets talk about whats happening here. Caroline hyde is with us. What did she say . Caroline it was interesting, the growth in the United States. Thats what she was starting from. This is an acquisition 7 billion worth of assets. It is already the spring but she couldnt give me a date. E cigarettes, they are growing that brand in the u. S. It is very embryonic. There are some phenomenal targets about how big this could be by 2050 and she thinks in particular the Health Benefits can be significant. It doesnt have to be about cigarette smoking anymore. It could be about taking nicotine in another way without any burning in your mouth. I also spoke to of course the u. K. Chief executive about the election and politics. She said she couldnt make a comment in either direction about which party she would want, but she said they need to focus on business and regulatory issues. In particular, she feels at the moment there isnt much consistency when analyzing what regulation makes sense for companies in the u. K. That was a priority. I pushed her a little bit further just asking about what about the exit from the e. U. If the conservatives took to the helm. She said leaving the e. U. Would be bad for her business. It would raise a lot of concerns for her. She feels that is a key issue for them. Notably, on the flip side, labor is an issue for imperial tobacco. They would raise taxes to pay for health care. She said they already pay 12 billion pounds a year. They are substantially giving to the taxpayer. All in all a very interesting conversation. The way she sees womens role in companies, she wants people to take into account how we promote diversity from companies whether it be from an ethnic or gender point of view. Back to you. Francine thank you so much. Caroline hyde there with the latest on imperial tobacco. Guy the Company Posted its first profit drop in 12 years. The c. F. O. Described challenges in the grocery market. It has been a tough environment over the last 1218 months. We have announced a drop in profits today. 681 million. We have beat Market Expectations of 659 million. Francine paul, thank you so much for joining us. The profit dropped for the first time in 10 years. How bad were the results . As the c. F. O. Said there, they were better than expectations and he has done a good job driving costs down in the business and that was the essence of the beat for expectations and they also did a pretty good job on their financial management. Their Capital Expenditure i think pleased the market. Initially, the share reaction was positive. However, as with all of these things, it turns out that maybe things are not quite as good as we first thought. That was the case with tesco two weeks ago. The share price opened positive and at the end of the day was negative. The share price is now falling off and the reason for that we think is because within the statement they talk about the 150 Million Pounds of price cuts which they have said they will do. Now they are talking about that number rising to 200 Million Pounds and it is really a sign that all of these mainstream grocers are having to put through even more price cuts just to stay ahead of the game or in line with the game where all of these discounters are making them stronger for business. Guy youre talking about the discounters. We still dont know yet how aggressive tesco is going to be. We still the expectation is that tesco is going to hit the price point pretty hard and that is going to affect sainsburies and morrisons. It could be more than that. It could be in for quite a long duration. Ultimately it could be. I like to think the tesco effect if you can imagine sainsbury being in a box and two walls coming on either side. 2001 discounters and the other premium sales. For a long, long time now there have been these two walls pressing against them and now we have this ceiling pressing down and this is tesco. The pressure is coming from three sides now like you say, tesco is putting everything into its business. For the middle of the market this is really having a massive impact. If you look at the short selling interests, that is indicative of this. Tesco is nowhere near the level of short interests. Francine thank you for joining us. Paul jarvis there, one of our editors on consumers talking to us about sainsbury. Guy coming up, well take a look behind b. M. W. Numbers next. Francine welcome back to the pulse live from bloombergs london headquarters. Guy b. M. W. Beat estimates this morning. Ryan chilcote joins us now with more on the numbers. We werent expecting very much out of these figures. A boith a surprise. Break it down. Mark youre going ryan youre going to hear a lot of beats. They beat in terms of the amount of sales they had last year and what investors were expecting of them for the First Quarter