France and Britain agreed Friday to pool some of their defense programs, including the A400M aircraft, but have ruled out building an entire aircraft carrier.
The defense ministers of both countries met in Paris to discuss their weapons programs in times of fiscal austerity that strikes the two countries.
'It is logical to examine the issues where we can share the assets rather than acting separately, "said the British minister, Liam Fox."It's a purely pragmatic."
His French counterpart Herve Morin said a series of tracks were considered, including on the A400M transport aircraft, tanker aircraft and naval assets.
On the A400M EADS, he added that cooperation would cover the maintenance, operational maintenance and possible pooling of fleets.
But he stressed that the use of common carriers was not currently planned.
Hennes & Mauritz said on Thursday that the fashion label Lanvin would draw her new clothing line, sold in the fall.
The Swedish group, Third World chain clothing stores, known for its trendy and cheap clothing, and regularly appeal to the world of fashion and show business to design collections.
The singer Madonna, or the creators Karl Lagerfeld, Stella McCartney and Roberto Cavalli have been solicited by the group.
These collections have little impact on the total turnover of the group, but analysts believe they provide visibility for the brand and enhance its image.
"Lanvin will provide to H & M tradition of French luxury, both modern and full of fantasy", explains Margareta van den Bosch, Advisor at H & M creation
This collection, designed by the artistic director of Lanvin, Alber Elbaz, and menswear designer Lucas Ossendrijver, will be launched on November 23 in 200 H & M stores worldwide.
Wall Street opened on earnings Monday, investors regaining confidence through several projects of mergers and acquisitions.
A few minutes after the start of trading, the Dow Jones gained 0.54% to 10,268.56 points, the Standard & Poor's 500 index 0.58% to 1077.89 points and the Nasdaq Composite 0.67% to 2194.34 points.
Hewlett-Packard on Monday launched an offer of 1.6 billion dollars (1.2 billion euros) to acquire the data storage company 3PAR, competing with the offer of its rival Dell issued last week.
Titles 3PAR Dell responded to the rise of this announcement, gaining 0.83% respectively and 42%, while HP lost 0.27% at the opening.
The group Campbell Soup gained 0.19% after announcing consider an offer of 1.5 billion pounds (2.3 billion dollars) on the activities of Britain's United Biscuits cookies.
Finally, 3M took the 1.10% group is likely to spend about two billion dollars (1.6 billion) in acquisitions this year, twice more than its previous estimate.
"This suggests that companies have reached a point where they want to grow their cash. (…) This is obviously a positive sign for markets," said Michael O'Rourke, a specialist market with BTIG LLC.
Axa announced Wednesday better than expected financial results for the first half despite an increase in half-mast, a performance in line with its objective to give priority to the recovery in margins rather than its development.
The second group of European insurance by market capitalization has reaffirmed its commitment to reallocate capital to its geographical margins of the most promising, even to withdraw from certain activities in mature areas.
"That does not mean that we do not have aggressive strategies in certain areas at present" said CEO Henri de Castries, and in an interview broadcast by the insurance group.
The manager has shown this strategy through the recent sale of several business lines in Britain and a willingness to invest in countries and trades in Asia, South America or Eastern Europe.
"This strategy is not as simple as when the whole world was growing at the same pace," he said.
Axa has benefited in the first half of rebounding financial markets and a better performance of its life insurance business, savings and pensions business, which offset the damage, which has suffered many natural disasters earlier this year .
NO CHANGE OF SENTIMENT
If these results are rather a good surprise, two analysts issued notes in the wake of the results fell they should not substantially change investor sentiment vis-à-vis the company.
At 09:15, the title was up 1.4% at 14.94 euros, after opening up over 2.6%, while the CAC 40 index yielded 0.2%.
Axa has lost about 10.9% since the beginning of the year, underperforming the European index DJStoxx insurance, which gained 3.16% over the same period.
The group's net profit stood at 944 million euros, a figure well above the 623 million approached by the consensus of analysts conducted by the editor of Reuters.
If the result is displayed down 28% over the same period last year, this drop is due to the supply of 1.478 billion euros spent by the group following the sale of assets United Kingdom, cited by Henri de Castries.
Without this extraordinary loss, net income would rise by 81% while revenues only increased it by 1% to 49.925 billion euros.
The decline in operating income amounted to 3% to 2.082 billion euros, superior performance under one billion to 1.884 to Reuters.
Axa has not commented on the offer of 11.5 billion dollars from the National Australia Bank on its subsidiary AXA Asia Pacific.
The subsidiary has announced a profit of 219.2 million Australian dollars for the first six months of the year, a figure in line with market expectations.
The offer, which clashed with the Australian authorities to the competition runs until August 31.
Wall Street operates on a hesitant note in early trading, pending the publication of monthly statistics of sales of new homes.
The major indexes started up after raising earnings forecasts from FedEx Group but they quickly moved into the red.
Ten minutes into trading, the Dow Jones was almost in equilibrium at 10,427.27 points, the Standard & Poor's 500 index was virtually unchanged at 1102.91 points and the Nasdaq Composite Index retreated 0.16 % to 2265.93 points.
FedEx earned more than 4% after raising its earnings forecast for the quarter and year.
Values pharmaceutical react to rumors of acquisition of biotech company Genzyme. Genzyme earned the title at 5.33% 65.85 dollars in early trade.
Finally, the BP side as New York took 2.79% to 37.89 dollars before the board meeting, scheduled for Monday evening, which could define the modalities of the departure of CEO Tony Hayward and announce his replacement by Bob Dudley, the American leader who also oversees the fight against the oil spill.
French banks BNP Paribas, SocGen, Credit Agricole and BPCE, parent company Natixis, have passed the stress tests conducted by European authorities said on Friday the Bank of France.
In a statement, the regulator said that following the test on a scenario of economic decline worse than expected and a new crisis on the European sovereign debt, the four French banks show a ratio of Tier One financial solvency through 9 3% at end 2011.
In this scenario, which holds a particular hypothesis of two years of recession in the euro area in 2010 and 2011, European regulators demanded that they tested 91 European banks show a ratio of at least 6%.
"This is a satisfactory result, not surprisingly, is quite comforting," said Christian Noyer, Governor of the Bank of France at a press briefing.
Christian Noyer, who is also member of the Governing Council of the European Central Bank, said that the total exposure of the four French banks, European sovereign debt amounted to 240 billion euros at end-March, which accounted for 43 billion in their "trading book" (portfolio of financial assets).
He also explained that a risk of default on sovereign debt of a sovereign state had been excluded from testing scenarios.
To restore investor confidence, the European Union 91 European banks submitted to stress tests to ensure that their capital was adequate to cope with a worsening economic conditions and financial market shocks.
Led by the Committee of European Banking Supervisors (CEBS) and drawing lessons from the debt crisis of Greek, tests have included discounts which reduce the market value of some bonds.
Fears of contagion in Europe of the fiscal crisis of Greece has weighed heavily in recent months on financial stocks.
The sector index Stoxx 600 European banks yields almost 5% since the beginning of the year.
The NYSE has ended sharply lower Friday, the Dow Jones industrial yielding 30 261.41 points, or 2.52%, to 10,097.90 points.
The S & P 500 is broader, lost 31.62 points, or 2.88% at 1064.86 points.
The Nasdaq Composite fell 70.03 points on his side (3.11%) to 2179.05 points.
The chances of achieving economic growth of 2.5% in France in 2011, as required by government depart according to a Reuters poll of economists, who consider the measures of fiscal consolidation in Europe will weigh on demand .
Seventeen economists polled by Reuters expect, thereby increasing the gross domestic product by 1.3% next year (median forecast), against 1.7% in a poll conducted in April equivalent.
The median forecast for 2010 is 1.3% against 1.4% in April.
"The austerity measures in France and neighboring countries will weigh on demand and we expect a decline in consumption and investment in a number of European countries," said Maxime Lemerle, an economist at Euler Hermes.
Economists now expect that consumer spending, a pillar of French growth, will increase by only 1.1% in 2011, when they expected 1.4% in April.
Over two thirds of French exports to Europe by the weak demand in the region should weigh heavily on trade, according to Maxime Lemerle, which forecasts growth of 1.1% of GDP in 2011, a cons, 8% previously.
The government expects growth to reach 2.5% annually between 2011 and 2013, which would help reduce the government deficit from 8% in 2010 to 6% in 2011, 4.6% in 2012 and 3% in 2013 .
Slower growth could lead to additional measures to reduce the deficit or raising taxes.
"If we have less growth, certain expenses will tend to increase as those related to employment. So I think they might have to raise taxes a bit," said Dominique Barbet, economist at BNP Paribas.
The Economy Minister Christine Lagarde said she would not rule to revise the growth forecast for 2011 after the publication in mid-August GDP figures for the second quarter.
His counterpart on the Budget, Baroin, said the deficit reduction targets were met, although growth was below forecast.
The government plans to reduce the deficit to 6% in late 2011, 40 billion euros less than in 2010.According Baroin, 15 billion will come from the extinction of the recovery plan, saving 14 billion and 11 billion of revenue increases.
The NYSE has finished lower on Thursday, several economic indicators are below expectations come stoke fears of a slowdown in the recovery.
The market, however, finished above its lowest sitting through purchases on the cheap.
The Dow Jones yielded 0.42% to close at 9732.53 points.
The S & P 500 is broader, has lost 0.32% to 1027.37 points.
The Nasdaq Composite fell on his side from 0.37% to 2101.36 points.
Iberia announced it has signed a merger agreement with British Airways, a combination that will create the world's third largest airline.
The Spanish company affixes his signature to a text that defined last April, one week after her British counterpart said it had reached an agreement to cover the deficit of 3.7 billion pounds of its pension scheme .
The transaction, which will see shareholders of British Airways to 55% of all new, must still be endorsed by shareholders, which is expected in November.
Iberia has also an exit clause for three months, always linked to its assessment of the ability of BA to the deficit of its pension system, a point already in the past failed to derail the proposed merger .
"Iberia has three months to leave the project from the time the agreement (signed between British Airways and managers of pension funds) is subject to the regulatory authority of British pensions," said Iberia.