And Australian Central Bank cuts. The aussie dollar rises with more to come. All right. Warm welcome to you. Another two hours of Worldwide Exchange to come. We kick off with a little bit of data out of italy. June Industrial Production not rising as much as had been forecast. The june industrial output up. 3 on the month, down 2. 1 on the year. It was seen rising up. 5 on the month, down 3. 2 on the year. And, of course, that will set us up for the gdp a little bit later. We will be in italy ahead of that. Also, as i say, on todays show, well speak to rbs. It wont be enough to topple the aleta coalition. Low cast airline easy jet gets into the business. Well look at the food revolution at 11 20. And amazon founder jeff bezos agreed to buy the Washington Post, the paper battles falling circulation. What does this mean for the business of media . More analysis with Bertha Coombs from the states. And also, we take the pulse of the Solar Industry with edward guinness, ceo of Guinness Alternative Energy fund. Got any thoughts or comments, please email us, worldwide cnbc. Com. We kick off in the corporate sector. A bit of a selloff for want of a spinoff. Sony shares dropping more than 5 after the Japanese Firm rejected investor dan loebs plan to spin off part of its entertainment arm. Some losses after the hedge fund said it would keep talking with sony to find more shareholder value. In a letter to third point, the ceo defended keeping full control of the entertainment unit, saying it helped to drive synergies. Sony agreed to sharpen its earnings picture when it comes to disclosing movie and music revenues. You said they wouldnt really bend to dan loebs influence. Where does this leave him now . Well, i think the fact of the matter is that if there is more recognition about the fact that the Japanese Companies move a lot more in stake holder theory rather than shareholder theory, i think there will be less of the incidents happening. Unfortunately i think that is not the case. Now, where will it leave sony . Basically they would have to continue to pursue the future growth pillars. In other words, they did very well this time around with their focus into higher valueadded tvs and smartphones, et cetera, and for that reason they turned into black. But the thing that the investors are really look forward to is what theyre going to do in transitional type of changes to take place in the future. And thats, i think, one of the things mr. Loeb is also aiming for, what theyre going to do in the future, especially on the growth areas such as entertainment. Yeah. The question is whether they, you know, loeb is saying maybe marrow your product portfolio. Should they be doing that . Possibly or diversification. But what they really need is a focal point, scrap and build is something they now have to do because obviously sony cannot regress back into the areas of virtual integration like panasonic. They cannot do that. At the same time, they become far too big to become regressing back into the inonovative sony they were ten years ago. Theyre caught somewhere in between and they need to show direction of where theyre going or theyll regress to being a niche player, or diversification which they claim, but really hasnt shown the fruit of what they have been targeting so far. As you say, they see the entertainment unit as an integral part. They see it as something that can aid success in the electronics division, the question is, they have so far failed to leverage position and content production to improve performance in consumer electronics. I mean, do we question have to question whether that is actually possible . Well, i think synergyism between the two, i think there has been more of a cannibalization than anything else. I think the Management Task is really to reveal that this is actually possible. But, again, the methodology of that or the witness of that has really not been seen with sony and thats probably one of the reasons the investors have been frustrated over the years about the synergism of sony. And, again, this is partly due to the lack of directions and directions being indicated by the managerial strategic apex. It is a difficult choice. Because if they do go smaller, i mean, there is, you know there is a list of companies, nokia, blackberry, who had very narrow definition of what they do in a product line and look what happened to them. Well, i think sony cannot regress back into the considering the diversification already made and the size they already reached. Such companies have made a transitional changes into other focal points. All the Successful Companies have done that. But were not seeing seeds of that yet in sony, thats the frustration. Theyre doing well in the conventional business or regress back to a certain degree, we all know thats short to midterm goals and what were looking for is longterm transitional structural changes to take place. Very briefly, what would you invest in what do you think of the stock and the value in this company at the moment . Well, we have a buy on this one, but it goes back to the questioning of the longterm strategics. Many are waiting with expectation to come up with a lot more fruitful plans for the future, although were not seeing this at the moment. Sugiro, thank you for that. Director of mizuhu international london. Jeff bezos is buying the Washington PostPublishing Business and the namesake paper for 250 million, which would end 80 years of ownership by the graham family. He says this is a personal acquisition and is reassuring post employees and readers hell preserve the journalistic tradition. Donald graham said he and his niece decided to put the business up for sale earlier this year after looking at the books. They discussed a deal at the ail alan and Company Meeting in july. It will eventually change its name. Shares topped 600 in after hours. The first time above that mark in five years. Washington post very well known publication, top producer in the United States. The fallout from terrorist botulism scare rages on as product recalls continues. The fear is that it could have contaminated other products. In hong kong, 80,000 cans of cow milk formula are being pulled off the shelves. New zealand Prime Minister wants an in depth probe to find out what happened. Fronterra closed up more than 1 after yesterdays sharp selloff. Now, costs 230,000 to make, and three months to prepare. And it flipped out of a petry dish this is the worlds first synthetic burger, being cooked and eaten in london. Scientists grew it from cow stem cells before adding a dash of beet juice, saffron. Picking up the check for the project was google founder sir guy brin. It is meat, but not as we know t we have been asking, would you actually eat the burger if you had been offered it . It is gone now. Join the conversation at Worldwide Exchange, get in touch with us, email us, worldwide cnbc. Com, tweet at cnbcwex or direct to me rosswestgate. And if youre a vegetarian because you dont like killing cows, or calves, would you eat a stem cell burger . Interesting. Right. Lets kick off todays Global Market trades with a look at where we are in europe. Weighted to the downside now as you can see. Decliners outpacing advancers about by 5 to 4. Not huge losses for the dow jones. Ftse yesterday, ended up around 46 points. Were down 14. Another. 2. Xetra dax pretty flat as is the ftse mib. Gdp data to look forward to and the ibex is up. 15 as well. Yes. 15 . The dow is down 45 points. Nasdaq up for the final straight session in the United States. Bond markets, we saw treasury yields yesterday around the 2. 6 mark. Just a little bit higher, 2. 64 . Not much reaction really during the session to the ism, nonmanufacturing index, slightly better than expected. Tenyear gilts, look at the production today, still just below this 2. 5 . Italian yields lower today at 4. 25 . Now, big focus on the currency markets. Australia in a second. Elsewhere, euro dollar, 1. 33 mark. Dollar yen, still with a. 98 handle. Focus on the aussie dollar, up around twothirds of a cent today. Australian central bank made cuts, and with more unemployment they cut by 25 basis points as expected to a fresh record low. Mining boom has been tapering off. The Central Bank SaysGlobal Growth could pick up next year and a lower aussie dollar may help exporters. But no clear signal on further cuts. So the ultra dovishness was removed and thats what helped send the aussie back off the threeyear lows that we had. As far as the overall is concerned today in australia, still despite that just down five point points. Elsewhere, the hang seng down 1. 34 with the kospi and the nikkei having a better day of it, up a percent today. The yen retreated a little bit. Also a reuters story that a Japanese Pension Fund was looking to buy more stocks. That helping out the japanese story. Now, as far as some other stories of concern, the french banks bottom line is relieved of priovisions for its greek business. Well get the latest from paris when we come back. [ male announcer ] ive seen incredible things. Otherworldly things. But there are some things ive never seen before. This ge jet engine can understand 5,000 data samples per second. Which is good for business. Because planes use less fuel, spend less time on the ground and more time in the air. Suddenly, faraway places dont seem so. Far away. All right, just getting numbers out from Standard Charter. Shares up 1 before the Earnings Announcement this morning. Were just about to see what we get from the asian focused bank. So while were waiting for those to come out, helia is with us. Looking forward to them. Very absolutely. Let me run through some of this. Profit before goodwill impairment and credit adjustment is up 4 to 4. 088 billion. In line with expectations. Good. Capital ratio 11. 4 , was 11. 6 in the first half of last year. And how are we doing on goodwill . Goodwill impairment charges of 1 billion related to korea. Yes. Thats what were expecting, absolutely. Right. So therefore 3. 338 billion, operating income excluding its own credit adjustment up 4 and 9. 75 billion. The profit after the profit after the goodwill impairment charge of 1 billion relating to korea is 3. 325 billion. So they say we enter the second half with good momentum, high volume growth and excellent client activity levels. Those are the essentials. Yeah, i think the korea thing is the impairment, the writedown, the goodwill number is key, because investors were looking for that, analysts had been talking about that since june because they didnt acquisition a couple of years ago. And it really talks to, you know, what is the value of asian assets and can you grow by acquisition. Thats a pretty big impairment hit. So noncash item, but yeah, more comments about korea, they said second half korea will also be very difficult, so we have taken a large impairment, no sign it is going to get any better. Absolutely, absolutely. Thats going to affect their consumer book as well. Because the Consumer Debt levels in korea very high. And this is against the backdrop where we saw hsbc come out with disappointing numbers yesterday and there is concern about the emerging market story, where is the the asian these banks have benefited, right, from an asian growth story, and now hsbc clearly, thats we saw we saw this with diageo. Bank stocks and beer stocks, exactly the same. Yeah, well, you know what i mean, but they have been they have done well in investors minds because they benefitted from information growth story. Now, clearly there is a change in tune with diageo, there. With hsbc, the uk part of the bank is doing well. I think these banks have enjoyed ten years of growth while other banks have stalled quite substantially. Yesterday, we heard from Stuart Gulliver saying emerging market has slowed, but we believe in the longterm picture. Peter sands, the Standard Charter chief exec is expected to give some kind of commentary later today. Ill be listening to that call. And hell be probably outlining where he sees that growth. The business world, i dont know what you can see on your screen, but one of the concerns that investors have this is wholesale banking. This is about 79 of the business. And it has grown incredibly quickly. And there have been some concerns about is this loan being written too fast who is it being written to, how solid is it . There are question marks over that. I dont know if the chief exec will address that, say, look, were being conservative, were being responsible, yes, were growing, but possibly we have to reign is in. We have grown a lot over the last decade. No comment either about we hear this confirmation from hsbc, you have to pay higher salaries. The fascinating thing about it is if theyre jacking up the cost space. Look, i think most people in the city, most people in the uk would agree that bonus caps in the way that the are talking are incredibly helpful because the banks kind of profits are flexible, they go up and theyre cyclical. If you tie yourself to a fixed cost like a high, high salary, then people are just going to either the talent will leave or youll have to pay out too much. One thing between lloyds and the central banks, if it is in the uk, i want it, if it is not, i dont. Interesting turn around. Very interesting turn around. We have gone from china to the uk, but i just i just highlight, were talking in china about a great story, a difference between 7 and 7. 5 . So dont get too excited. Dont get too excited. Helia, for now, thank you. Profit of Credit Agricole has surged after the french bank got a boost from the disposal of its greek unit. Shares have rallied. Stephane has been falling this in paris. They came out a little early, but i suppose bearing in mind what they say, they wont mind, stephane. The numbers released at 10 00 p. M. , but it raised some questions in a short time this morning that perhaps they were out even earlier than this. As we have seen yesterday at the end of the session, positive reaction on the share price of Credit Agricole, but officially it was 10 00 p. M. Yesterday, ahead of the official announcement. The bank announced a sharp increase of its net profit for the Second Quarter, because last year, ross, was impacted by some significant charges. One linked to the greek unit. So thats the main reason for the sharp increase of the net profit. If you look at the businesses, the cib division had a 38 increase in net profit under Second Quarter. But if you look at the large Retail Banking unit of Credit Agricole, the results were quite mixed on the quarter. It is true that the bank drew last year a line on its greek adventure, but now it needs to rebuild growth in the challenging economy. And taking also into account the new regulations in europe. The ceo of Credit Agricole said that is very cautious about the medium to longterm growth perspective, though it believes the bank will be able to report some significant significantly positive results for the full year. In terms of solvency, really improved its financial ratio. The ratio was at 10 at the end of june and leverage ratio, 3. 5 . Market reaction very positive. Were up 2. 6 . Just to let you know also, ross, tonight after the market close, the results from the French Investment Bank and we will have an exclusive interview with the ceo of the bank on cnbc, of course. All right, stephane, thanks for that. Thats the latest from paris and Credit Agricole. Italy, credit is reporting First Half Results later today, among other things jules decided to look at that. Still in milan. What can we expect, jules . Thank you very much, ross. Were expecting a First Half Results, this is the Second Largest Bank in italy, but they also operate in Eastern Europe and Northern Europe too. What were expecting them to confirm, the positive trends we have seen for the last couple of quarters, starting to see benefits feeding through, streamlined stock, while investors really focusing on is asset quality what is going on with the rising npls as far as italy is concerned in particular and provisions. We expect to see a quarter on quarter rise in provisions, of course, since seasonality and impact there and cross management for all of these banks feeding through, particularly given the head winds we have seen in europe. If we look at sanpaolo last week, they highlighted hungary and ukraine in particular as being particularly weak. Keeping an eye on that in particular. In terms of the facts and figures, though, net is just income expects to come in around 3. 4 billion euros. Expecting to see a funding cost improvement there. Deutsche bank saying a 1 quarter on quarter improvement and contrast with intesa that saw a decline there. Keeping a focus on that. Revenues of 5. 9 billion euros and operating profits in the region up. 2 billion euros. Ill speak to the ceo later this afternoon. Hopefully ill be able to bring you that in closing bell. If not, first thing on squawk box tomorrow morning. For now, ross, back to you. Hes a good man to speak to. Trying. Good. Okay. Jules, we look forward to that. Thanks for now. Deutsche is feeling more confident about its outlook and raised its guidance for the year. Operating profit for the Second Quarter of 619 Million Euros, rise of 14 . They thought the results were helped by the reversal of a provision. Shares are down sharply t