Axa announces plans to float a Minority Stake in its u. S. Operations, as the french insurer reports First Quarter revenue shy of analyst estimates. Ings First Quarter underlying pretax results exceed expectations, but the companys cfo tells this program demand is still soft. Demand is still quite low. So you have to work really hard in order to get your lending volume in. Thats why we are so flash and happy with the 5. 7 billion. Good morning. Glad youre with us on wednesday. We have a lot to get through. Lets kick things off. A Stunning Development in washington. President trump has fired fbi director james comey who had been conducting an investigation into possible connections between trumps president ial campaign and russia. According to a white house statement, trump acted on recommendations from Deputy Attorney general rosenstein and jeff sessions. Bot richard burr the republican senator leading the Senate Investigator into the possible russian ties said he is troubled by the timing and reasoning of director comeys termination. Blaine alexander has more on this story. Reporter james comey went to los angeles as fbi director, tonight hes flying back to washington as a private citizen fired by President Trump. The President Trump made a decision that should be applauded by all members of congress. The public by in large will agree he lost the ability to lead the fbi. Reporter tonight comey outraged. His departure coming as the fbi investigates Trump Campaign ties to russia and election tampering. Are people going to suspect coverup. Absolutely. Comey was not fired because of hillary. Comey was fired because of the russians. The timing makes this clear. Reporter in his termination letter, the president said he wanted to restore public trust, while also pointing out that comey said three separate times that mr. Trump himself was not under investigation. Republicans giving a more muted response. It came as a surprise to me, i wonder if its not the inevitable conclusion. I regret that that took place. The president does have that authority. Reporter the white house says this was ultimately the president s decision, the recommendation came from Deputy Attorney general Rod Rosenstein and attorney general jeff sessions. The white house says a search for a permanent replacement begins immediately. Blayne alexander, nbc news, the white house. I wonder how Hillary Clinton must be taking this. Mr. Trump will meet with Sergey Lavrov at the white house today. This will be the highest level between the president and the russian government since he took office. Lets have a quick look at the markets. The comey firing was treated as a bit of a riskoff event. That was shown in the dollar ini index overnight. Lets turn our attention to the action in terms of the European Equity markets. The ftse 100 is off by 0. 1 . The dax coming off the record highs of yesterday, off by 24 points. The cac 40 is off by 0. 34 . If we move on to the sectors, this is still very much driven by the earnings we had oututili. Axa higher because of the float of the u. S. Business. Construction material off by 0. 9 . This is after heidelbach cement had disappointing numbers. Shares of Barratt Development expects its profit to be at the top end of estimates. It says it is benefitting from solid Market Conditions driven by rising house prices, cheap mortgages and Government Schemes to promote homeownership. Shares of campari have touched a record high as the u. S. Strategy appears to be paying off. The companys earnings topped expectations with organic sales increasing by almost 6 , thanks to a Strong Performance in north, central and eastern europe. Earlier we asked the ceo if he is planning more acquisitions. If you take all the groups in our industry, we only account for 15 of volume, and north of 20 in value. So there are a lot of great businesses which are independently owned out there. There are succession issues, go to market issues, were always there to provide help. At the same time theres innovation starting to happen. Two months ago we acquired bulldog gin, which was created by an exinvestment banker, six or seven years ago. Thats one of the most vibrant brands in the premium jim category. Ing reported stronger than expected profit. They enjoyed a 6. 7 billion rise in customer deposits while bad loans fell. The lowrate environment may continue to be a problem in the future according to the ceo. Its not only fair to complain about low Interest Rates because they help the economy and on the credit side and the risk will stay lower. At the same time rates below zero are becoming a problem for the future. Because in the end, if it is below zero, then it is difficult to pass that on to retail clients. So somewhere in the future that might result in a margin squeeze. Low is okay. But too low and certainly below zero for a long period of time will become an issue. First quarter operating profit at aholddelhaize topped expectations. The dutch retail group ceo said he expects sales to improve further in the Second Quarter including in the u. S. Amid tough competition. Im positive that the impact of the competition in the u. S. Market, we are ready for that, weve been investing heavily in our stores, remodeling our stores. Competition is part of life. Its everywhere in the world. I invite you to email the show. The address is streetsignseurope cnbc. Com. You can also find us on twitter, street signstreetsignseurope ct me at carolincnbc. On the other side of the break, we have the ceo of italys top bank. If you have if he questions, let us know. Well put those to him. Coming up, find out why low volatility may not linger for long. Well be back in two. The shows about to start how do i look . Like a bald penguin. [ laughing ] show me the Billboard Music awards. Show me top artist. Show me the top hot 100 artist. They give awards for being hot and 100 years old . Well take 2 [ laughing ] xfinity x1 gives you exclusive access to the best of the Billboard Music awards just by using your voice. The Billboard Music awards. Sunday, may 21st eight seven central only on abc. Lets talk about banks. We have got Intesa Sanpaolo with net income 11. 8 . Strong fee income, an increase of 10 . The italian lender saying core capital ratio is at 12. 5 , down 0. 4 from the end of december. Im glad that weve now got with us carlo macina, the ceo of inte Intesa Sanpaolo. From other banks, weve seen a strong start to the year. How did that play out for you . In our case, the driving area has been web management. We completed the transformation of our bank into a wealth M Management Company and delivered the strongest results. In three years time, we increased by 80 billion youre we are a unique case in europe, because having Strong Capital position were in yew niece uni position to pay dividend to share holders. Deutsche bank points out that your bank is a play based on Wealth Management and higher dividend. I want to stick with the Wealth Management angle. Youre trying to top the immense wealth sitting within the private sector in italy. You wouldnt think that, but theres immense potential there. Beyond italy, where you are looking . Beyond italy, we are concentrating on 200 billion euros of wealth, 100 billion euro is already in list of clients that we gave to our relationship manager. So i think we can continue in italy to deliver at the same speed that we had in in the past Business Plan. Another area important for us is china. We decided to invest in china, and we said we want to replicate our model also in china, especially with personal and private clients. Can that be replicated . Theres so much competition out in china. I talked to some of the biggest Wealth Managers in the world, theyre very active. They have got much bigger fire power when it comes to allocating some resources there. Can you compete with those players . But they are concentrated on high net worth. We are not competing with high net worth. If you work with private client, personal, you cant replicate our model. It is a model working with a strong retail franchise, with affluent clients in china we want to replicate the same. We have one of the leading banks of this area, we are working with the community, so we think we can replicate, but not competing with ubs, making another different job the one we are doing knitly. In italy. Are you also saying you are able to keep up your margin . Thats right. Thats a place where were strong, private but not ultra high net worth. We are a different story, but a story that is delivering sustainable commissions. And it is also the area in which we have the higher margin per client. So, Wealth Management, thats one of the key growth areas that youre looking at. The other attraction to investors is the dividend. You are paying out 17. 8 cents a share, an 8 dividend yield, thats a hefty dividend yield. Can that grow . My expectation is we will continue to grow strong. Other competitors that are growing in Corporate Investment banking we are growing in Wealth Management. Without capital. So having a Strong Capital position, you can continue to generate income revenues without absorption of capital. So you are in unique position to have net capital and pay significant dividend. We will release a new Business Plan in 2018 that we will set figures for next year. But the expectation is to have Significant Growth in revenues coming from commissions. To tell you about an upside potential that we have, because if you consider that in the future Interest Rates will increase, we have a sensitivity in which premium increases 100 business points in Interest Rates, we will have an increase 1. 1 billion euros in Net Interest Margin because we are also a strong franchise. So in my view we are unique opportunity to grow in revenues, so net income, dividend and capital. We will talk about the ecb and potentially tightening Monetary Policy in a minute. I want to come back to the fact that you dropped a steak in j generale. Do you not think will you revisit those plans to build a bank and insure a type of organization . Is that not on the cards anymore . Its clear that if you are a ceo of a big organization, big market cap, it is your duty to look at different options for growth. Especially if you want to become and to remain and have your leadership in Wealth Management. At the same time its your duty to make the job of creating value for your shareholders. At sanpaolo, number one. As a general rule you want to grow organically or are you looking at we wanted to grow organically. As i told you, we have already 100 billion euros. We delivered 80 billion euros and increased by 10 our commission base if we can increase another 100 billion euros in volume we can also increase in the next Business Plan. Lets talk about the ecb. A lot of people in the market say macron was the main trigger for the ecb to start tightening. Do you agree with that view . I think that in the end, in one year, a couple of years, we will have for sure a reduction in that and increase in Interest Rates. So maintaining this approach will come to an end in my view after the german election. So we will remain with this condition until the end of the year. Starting from 2018, its likely that Interest Rates can increase and there could be some reduction in the amount of government bonds bought by the ecb. But again, youre a bank that was desperately weighing for higher net interest income. Thats been under pressure in the First Quarter again. Do you not feel like the ecb is giving itself too much time to wait for growth and inflation to pick up further . Were already seeing those two metrics at healthy levels. Should it move faster . It is clear that on the other side we have some benefits to real economy. Being a big bank you have to consider impacts on real economy. The expectation is that Interest Rates will increase, if you are a strong wealth Management Company you can have advantages in a zero rate environment like the one in which we are operating. Until 1 positive interest rate, we will remain a strong Wealth Management franchise and a strong retail benefiting from increase in Interest Rates. My expectation is that we will have an increase in Interest Rates, this will bring us a lot of revenues coming from Market Conditions and not from our actions. What do you think was the main factor for the rerating of the banking stocks over the last couple months . Was it the capital hike by unicredit, by deutsche bank, Credit Suisse or the macron victory or what essentially is it . What were seeing out there is a massive rerating. That must be good for you guys, too. It is clear from one side we have some reduction in systemic risks. Unicredit, deutsche bank. So it is probably 30 reduction in systemic risks. But also something related to the possibility to reinforce the eurozone to eliminate any kind of expectation of euro pick up. The possibility to have Something Different in the way in which eurozone can act. This is something that i consider really very important. It could be 50 . And the other part is an increase in Interest Rates. It is clear that increasing Interest Rates, you can have some benefits. Retail banks have more benefit, but also the system will have benefit in increasing Interest Rates. Its a combination of factors. Do you think that maybe european investors are placing too much hope, pinning too much hope on emanuel macron and one specific candidate . We saw a similar story back in the day with matteo renzi. He didnt quite fulfill all the expectations. It is clear that we are now in a phase in which the first point is avoiding the risk of populism and possible eurozone threat or problematic situation. Thats the first part of the story. Delivering on actions, ability to manage accounts. Thats the second part of the story. The main part of the point is to avoid the risk of having eurozone pick up. Also the coming back of renzi in good shape in italy is in my view another good Value Proposition for investors, because having also strong leader in italy could be a big thing for the market. Can he beat the five Star Movement . Does he have the credibility coming back . He won the primaries convincingly. I dont want to get into political analysis, but if you look at italy, italy is a country with 6 trillion of wealth of italian families. Its difficult in a country like this can decide to have a government that could be that could put some threat the wealth of italian people. In my expectation, the possibility to have a strong leader like renzi or centerright leader as the winning competition could be the likely results for the future. We have to talk to you about npls in italy. We cannot talk to you about that. If i look at your statement from the First Quarter, your inflows of bad loan s during the First Quarter was the lowest since the creation of the bank ten years ago. Thats reassuring. What about the rest of the Banking Sector . We have an advantage coming from our ability to underwrite credit. Its clear we have a situation much better than the system, but in any case all real economies benefiting from the growth in gdp. Now were at sustainable 1 growth. Italy, not china but it is likely japan. Coming back to 1 gdp, i think that for the condition, the italian Banking System is assuring the situation not only for san paolo. Were seeing jes staley coming under pressure because of this whistleblower incident. I wonder, do you think theres too much scrutiny when it comes to bankers, or are they moving into behavior characterized by precrisis behavior . I think in any case the situation is completely different. Now we can look at the bute chore, the ba future, the banking landscape in a different way. Thank you so much for your time. In other news, axa says it will float a Minority Stake in its Life Insurance unit in the united states. The french insurer said it would bring Financial Flexibility to its strategy. Axa posted a slight miss on First Quarter revenues. Lets dig deep neither story with gemma acton. Investors seemed to like this. T