Reject a multibillion dollar bid from the u. S. Giant. And russia braces for further sanctions from the u. S. And europe as prorussia separatists release one military observer but keep seven others hostage in Eastern Ukraine. Youre watching Worldwide Exchange, bringing you Business News from around the globe. French president Francois Hollande is currently meeting with alstoms gm to hear an alternative proposal. Lets go out to frankfurt for more on this. Annetta, what has this approach from siemens meant for the future . This is a good sign that they are quite old when it comes to act weations. So some people would have or already said it might be the case that hes more reluctant and that would be very bad for siemens, so hes not trying to miss out on an outstanding opportunity. Siemens is calling that a good sign for the future. So what is on the table, siemens according to the letter that was sent to the ceo yesterday and circulated and leaked to various media is bidding up to 15. 3 billion u. S. Dollars for those energy assets. Thats a lot more than ge is putting on the table. And they are also proposing an asset spark, which would actually mean that siemens is planning to create two big champions, one Energy Champion which is siemens and one trained champion, who is alstom. So it sounds like they are offering an european alternative to what ge is trying to do without them. So the german media is actually even talking about european General Electric which might be created by such a deal. Looking at the rational for siemens, it is a win win situation one could argue for siemens because if the asset deal goes through, they could get rid of the badly performing Train Division right now. The profitability of the Train Division is really lagging. The sold siemens profitability. At the same time, they could get something from the competitors. Of course, this is the big thing of the future. That market is very competitive with the chinese getting into the market and increasing competition. For now what we can say is of course the siemens shares are reacting negatively, but traders are also saying everything is actually played now through the siemens shares and they are not traded until wednesday. With that, karen, back to you. Thank you for fleshing out the german side because it explains the rational for it. While she was speaking, president obama has been talking about the sanctions against russia. It says new russia sanctions will target vim individuals and companies with high exports to russia. Meanwhile, the president goes on to say the new sanctions represent calibrated efforts to change russias behavior in the ukraine crisis. You can see live pictures coming through. The further context of what hes saying is that the next would be more sanctions possibly targeting banking and defense areas. And he says the u. S. And allies are keeping in reserve for sanctions against russia. Hes flushing out put more detail saying there could be more down the track, but so far they have not chosen that. Im not sure if we have sound to listen to. Do we want to listen to sound . Lets have a listen in. I think that there are going to be territorial disputes around the world, like we have territorial disputes with some of our closest allies. I suspect that there are some islands and rocks in and around canada and the United States where they are dating back to the 1800s, but we dont go around sending ships and threatening folks. What we do is we sit down and we have some people in a room, its boring, its not exciting, but its usually a good way to work out these problems. And work out these issues. And i think that all the countries that ive spoken to in the region during the course of my trip, japan, south korea, malaysia and now the philippines, their message has been the same everywhere i go, which is they would like to resolve these issues peacefully and diplomatically. U. S. President barack obama there talking about fresh sanctions against russia. Lets come back to our top story here and get the perspective from alstom and how the french are dealing with this competing offer from siemens with one on the table from ge. Stephane, isnt this nearly a change of bedmates . Reporter france is not that close to international investors. Recently we had a deal, last week between the publicist and a almacon, we will discuss that next with our guest here, thank you very much for being with us. Do you have the feeling that the government is two dimensional . I dont think so. I think france is believing in free markets. We are a country that is open to international investors. France is a great place to invest, so, no, i dont think the government is. They are vocal, which is quite normal. We are in france, so you have to play by the ruling. Reporter lets talk about the deal itself, do you think, first of all, alstom can remain independent or will merge with another French Company . Well, alstom is a Great Company but it lacks critical mass. It is highly leveraged, and it is currently suffering from europe. So alstom currently needs to find a partner. Its too small. What do you think would be the best deal for alstom. For alstom or the shareholders . Alstom. The problem with siemens is there is a huge envelope in activities, so it means probably a lot of job losses and it also means that tit would be extremey difficult for them to obtain for siemens. Reporter do you feel that General Electrics deal is almost done . Well, i think the deal is well advanced. Apparently the board of ge has already given its green light. So i think the deal is almost sealed. Reporter but why then the seal of cement to meet with french president hollande . Well, siemens and alstom hedge each other. A few years ago, siemens tried to kill the plan of alstom, so they cant allow them to fall into the hands of ge without reacting. So they are trying to kill that deal, but getting a deal done for siemens is quite challenging. Reporter thank you very much for your comments and analysis from outside the french finance minute industry. Well be back a bit later in the program with more on that story. Over to you. Stephane, good language there trying to kill the deal to prevent a love affair. Who do you think will win the bidding battle for altom, ge or siemens . Plenty of other news, the mega merger of two advertising giants is in doubt. The wall street journal reports on the publicists that cant agree on the 35 billion deal announced last july. They are at odds over who will be the legal acquirer delaying paperwork with the sec. While both companies will own 50 , one has to buy the other for accounting reasons. The common publicists have held 70 meetings of integrate committees. This is a look at the shares today in frankfurt. Shares are trading lower for omnicom at 2. 7 lower and pub c Publicis Groupe is also 1. 4 lower. Mylan made an initial offer earlier this month that was rejected. Meda plans to remain a single company. Lets move on to america reportedly close to a deal to sell the Consumer Health care unit for close to 14 billion. The business includes Consumer Brands such as coppertone suntan lotion and claritin allergy bills. They also own the rights to dr. Scholls and also sell mucinex. Buyers of Consumer Brand include alcaseltzer. A big move in buy shares. A little bit less moving in the other two stocks. Pfizer has a renewed approach to astrazeneca about a takeover maker. This is a look at the shares today. A big move in astras shares, one of the top on the ftse, 14 . Pfizer a slight bit higher in germany today. Katherine boil is joining us with more on that. Theres been a lot of discussion behind the scenes, is the next offer going to be a hostile one . Well, it looks like pfizer is very much taking that tone with the Statement Today saying they made a couple of efforts to engage with astrazeneca management and they are not engaging back and are going directly to shareholders. What we have to see next is how much of a sweetener they are coming back for the shareholders because actually, if you look at astrazeneca shares today, they are trading close to the initial offer price made back in january. So pfizer definitely is going to have to add a little bit more to that to see shareholders really respond. No doubt the hedge funds are snipping around this deal already, but when we talk about the hostile approach, these are much more difficult to get across. But you have a backdrop where big farmer is on the move with the hallowed activity out there. Do you think its us is taped for shareholders to listen to the approach at this point . In terms of the economy, theres a lot of talk about big pharma deals for the past year and all of a sudden this month everything is kicking off. And theres actually a relatively small investor for phrma, so there will be a lot of investors to sohold shares in pfizer and astrazeneca to listen to benefits for them. We have been listening to the french government over the alst t alstom takeover . There has already been a little bit of movement from some of the opposition u. K. Politicians. Astrazeneca is one of the biggest manufacturers here in the u. K. And one of the biggest science companies. If there was a threat to u. K. Jobs, that would be really, really worrying. But having said that, the pfizer chief executive has come out to say that the u. S. Tax regime is bringing better tax into the actual property and thats one of the reasons pfizer wants to potentially make this deal. So theres a bit of positive, a bit of negative there for the u. K. Government to take from that. Katherine, thank you for joining us to talk over the deal. Katherine boil with us on the program. Let me tell you what is coming up on todays show. Japans retail sales rise a bit to the fastest pace last month as consumers go on a spending spree ahead of the tax hike that came to affect last month. We asked how much of a drop to see in aprils numbers as a result. And well look at apple as the company has a 17 billion debt there. Well discuss whether the u. S. Homeownership rates will fall as baby boomers look to retirement. And are we about to witness the death of art dealers . Find out how the internet tried to revolutionize auction house auctions. Plenty more to come up, as you can see. Im almost done. [ male announcer ] now you can pay your bill. Manage your appointments. [ dog barks ]. And check your connection status. Anytime, anywhere. [ dog growls ] oh. So youre protesting . Okay. [ male announcer ] introducing xfinity my account. Available on any device. We are looking at the european markets as deals drive stock activities today currently tracking around the highs of the morning session. Well look at the major indices. The weak links out there are basic resources of health care shooting higher by 2 on the back of phrma deals. And the ftse spiked. 4 . The xetra dax spiked. 60 . The italian stock market today traveling higher by. 18 . Ukraine is kicking around the backdrop as well with fresh conversations from president obama about the sanctions russia could be facing, but all the activity seems to be pushing up Risk Appetite on the markets. And yields are lifts across on the bond markets. 2. 6 on u. S. Treasuries. And a lot of investors want clarity on the timing of the Interest Rate hikes. So the meeting tuesday and wednesday will be studied by investors, but we close out the week with u. S. Nonpayroll numbers. Just a bit of rate positioning ahead of the markets. 1. 5 . Just below that level on volumes currently. Lets just drift on to what we are seeing on Foreign Exchange markets. Theres been a lot of movement on some of these trades on the euro and on sterling today both trading higher by a quarter percent. Some of this likely down to the deal flows as well as you see money reallocated toward europe and u. K. We have a bit of a bounce playing out in the Australian Dollar climbing through the 93 u. S. Mark. The exception has been to the japanese yen as you see 102. 21. Theres some ukraine safety going into the japanese currency, but the u. S. Dollar is trying to pull back territory there. Well go out to asia where we are joined by sri. We seem to have the green captured on the europeans today. A pretty negative session out here in asia. And its exactly what you were talking about the main risk event of ukraine. We have heard from president obama now there will be some further sanctions. They will be expanded into more sanctions. This does up the ante on the risk environment, but you have to ask yourself, is it enough to really chase moscow and to humble Vladimir Putin. Ill leave that question hanging. It does raise the risks here on the radar screen for the asian investors. But also there are a number of other factors. We have a negative lead from wall street that was fairly uninspiring. And over in japan, retail sales data for the month of march pretty solid rose at its fastest pace in 17 years. But remember these numbers predate the sales tax hike. So that was a lot of front loading here. You have to already ask yourself whether the numbers are indicative of real demand in the japanese economy. And that appears to be why the markets are brushing it off, negative tone as i said. The stronger yen as you pointed out is instrumental in driving down the exporter names by indication of the broader market. One of the performers is down by 1. 5 . Some of the moves could be exaggerated because liquidity that much thinner on the ground. Tomorrows a Public Holiday in japan. The market will be closed. Then on wednesday we have the boj. No surprises there, but we will have some new economic projections. One of the big loss leaders today is the shanghai comp really testing the 2,000 market. And the story there is well be seeing the resumption in ipo. The fear in the market will drain the liquidity. The overlay is quite negative because the data sets havent been very convincing with the lack of stimulus. And speaking of which, speaking of data, rather, well have on thursday the official pmi numbers from beijing. So if it does slip further below 50, then we could see some more negativity in some of these equity markets. Having said that, a lot of the bad news has been factored in, hasnt it . Back to you, karen. Sri, thank you very much for that. We have been following the comments and we are expecting to hear fresh sanctions today from president obama. Interesting comments to obama saying hell mobilize european countries, many skeptical about taking action against russia to impose sanctions over moscow for the ukrainian crisis. Well see what the sanctions are as the question mark for today. Lets take a look at some of the earnings news out driving some of the trades. Investors are cheering german drugmaker bayer after a strong set of First Quarter numbers. Underlying profit rose more than 11 in a period that was thanks to a Strong Performance. Bayer also enjoyed a strong outcome in the Plastics Division as they trade higher in germany today. A different side for halcom part of a big tieup agreeing to a deal with france. Holcims ceo says it will be completed by the First Quarter of next year. Car line, that deal is more interesting today. How is this progressing . Well, they say that as you said in the read there, it is still going to close in the First Quarter of 2015 and theres huge concerns about the regulatory issues around what kind of absence holcim and lafarge would have to sell off. Holcim said were looking to get rid of 8 billion in assets but they are looking at which assets to sell. But some interesting commentary in the media as holcim says theres, quote, huge interest from buyers for holcim assets both from the financial and industry players. They are all interested in those assets. So again, they are hoping to get the thumbsup from the regulators for this deal to actually go through. Lets take a step back and actually look at the earnings. Yes, it was overshadowed by the m a news, but the profits were down 50 . Not great. We had a Strong Performance in europe. We had a very resilient performance in north america despite the very cold start to the year, but that strength would more than offset bernstein says by the weaknesses we saw. Also mexico, we are looking to lower prices and volumes in asia pisk pennsylvania civic and latin america. Overall, the outlook the company gave us this morning is not as cautious as it has been in the past because this is a company that usually strikes and is very cautious and they are seeing higher margins going forward. What do you make of this from the cultural side because one of the issues when you merge two companies is there the cultural deals are too far off that it doesnt make sense. Well look at siemens and holcims case, think about it with the swiss and the french. Even though the two sides dont want to admit it, they are not too far in terms of the cultural overall. If you see a deal happening within europe, i dont think that the nationalistic concerns are going to be as huge as they are with a u. S. franco tieup. Thank you, caroline ross. Still to come on the show, we are on the ground as the region increases militarization on its borders. Say tuned for the update. We needed 30 new hires for our call center. Im spending too much time hiring and not enough time in my kitchen. [ female announcer ] need to hire fast . Go to ziprecruiter. Com and post your job to over 30 of the webs leading job boards with a single click; then simply select the best candidates from one easy to review list. You put up one post and the next day you have all these candidates. Makes my job a lot easier. [ female announcer ] over 100,000 businesses have already used zip recruiter and now you can use zip recruiter for free at a special site for tv viewers; go to ziprecruiter. Com offer2. Youre watching Worldwide Exchange, bringing you Business News from around the globe. Merger monday. Francois hollande is meeting with the ceo of ge right now. Siemens shares trade lower as the Company Comes in with a counter offer. And pfizer has a fresh takeover plan fo