BP has relaunched the sale of its assets in Alaska after the collapse of talks for a sale to the American Apache in July, the Financial Times reported Monday.
Citing banking sources, the newspaper reported that Apache, which is based in Houston, Texas, is still face potential buyer.Occidental Petrolem Corp., another U.S. group, could also show interest.
The Financial Times says it is not known yet whether the British staff intends to sell its entire 26% stake in the Prudhoe Bay oil field, which includes a right of exploitation of the deposit payday loans.
BP is also in talks to sell assets in Vietnam and Venezuela as part of its plan to sell $ 30 billion to finance the cost of oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.
On Friday, the oil group said that the cost of the disaster reached eight billion dollars now.
Lagardere Group and Marie-Claire will announce on Friday the merger of their respective women's weekly, Be, Envy, launched in spring, following the slowdown in sales, "wrote Le Figaro.
The announcement comes as the magazine Grazia, the Italian group Mondadori, celebrates its first anniversary, the newspaper said.
Lagardere Active said Thursday it would make an "important announcement" on Friday morning, without further details.
"The proposed merger of two weekly was presented yesterday to the works of two groups," said a source quoted by Le Figaro.
To move into the niche market of women but crowded, Lagardere had decided in March to create the brand Be, both magazine, website, television series, application for the iPhone and web radio.
Lagardère Group owns 42% Marie Claire, one of which minority interests Arnaud Lagardère, general partner of the group, reiterated Thursday night trying to get rid.
"Be" was the first launch of magazine audience Lagardère since 2003. The group, which had invested some 20 million euros rough in launching this new brand, targeted a breakeven within three years.
According to Le Figaro, the approximation of the two week early due to faltering sales.Be seen its circulation fall to 171,397 copies sold in late June against nearly 230,000 at the beginning, while qu'Envy barely exceeded 160,000 at the same time cons over 240,000 at its launch in February.
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.
Registrations of new cars in France fell 12.9% in July over a year to reach 169,804 units with the continued weakening of the effect "scrappage" announced the Committee of French Automobile (CCFA).
The month of July had 21 working days, against 22 last year.A comparable number of working days, the decline in sales stood at 8.7%.
Of the first seven months of 2010, registrations in France, however, still stand up 2.8% in raw data to 1,382,240 units, and 2.1% in comparable number of working days compared the same period of 2009.
Sales only French brands fell 15.4% in July, while those of foreign brands fell 9.9%.
Car sales of PSA Peugeot Citroen shrank 15.0% last month, and those of Renault were down 7.6%.
Registrations only Dacia (Logan, Sandero and Duster) jumped 47.5% on month, while those of Renault fell 15.9%.
For PSA, sales of the Citroen were down by 17.0% and Peugeot were down by 13.3%.
Spir Communication has again suffered in the first half of the decline in sales in the free advertising press, but cost reductions have allowed it to stabilize its margin.
The media group and distribution of printed materials and packages still struggling to develop its model based on formerly free press announcements, but he expects further restructuring to achieve its objective of restoring the balance operational 2010.
Spir has declined by about 10% of its total turnover in the first half to 280.7 million euros, with a fall of 15% of cluster media, press and internet, and 6% of the segment distribution of printed advertising.
"In the context of an advertising market remains uncertain, Spir Communication is continuing its transformation and is maintaining its target for operating profit to breakeven in the year 2010," the group wrote in a statement.
The operating margin improved slightly semester to 1.7% (+0.2 points) thanks to cost efficiencies, including through a plan for adapting the press division, started in 2009, which reduced by 22% operating losses of this segment in the first half.
The group aims to reduce the share of sales made in the traditional activities of the press free to print ads in favor of a growth in Internet sales.
The press had in the first half for nearly 30% of total turnover, against 12% for sales generated by the division of Internet media.
The action Spir stable closed Tuesday at 16.40 euros in a market capitalization of just over 100 million euros.
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 Nikkei ended down 0.23% Wednesday, penalized by concerns about the strong yen and doubts over the sustainability of U.S. economic recovery.
The Nikkei lost 21.63 points to 9,278.83 and the broader TOPIX, sold 2.9 points (0.35%) to 829.35.
While studies suggest that the Chartists fall posted recently by the Japanese stock markets draws to a close, the lack of enthusiasm shown by the indicators U.S. leaves investors hungry.
The other major concern is the expectations raised by the publication Friday of the test results of resistance experienced by 91 European banks.
For values, trading companies sector has experienced a painful session after the publication of an article revealing that Daiwa Securities Nikkei was likely to report a loss for the period April to June due to instability markets after the crisis of European sovereign debt.
Daiwa Securities dropped 3.46% and its rival Nomura Holdings fell 3.81%.
Pason Group meanwhile plunged 5.77%, the investment group of employees who predicted an annual loss due to the hardness of the labor market.
Soitec said Monday sales of 2010-2011 in the first quarter increased 56.5% over the same quarter in 2009-2010 and 9.6% from the previous quarter, against a background of strong demand and thanks to a favorable currency effect.
The world's leading manufacturer of silicon-on insulation (SOI) for the microelectronics industry said in a press having achieved sales of 68.6 million euros over the period April to June 2010.
Soitec anticipates sequential growth in sales over 20% in first half on the basis of one euro to $ 1.27, with a return to balanced operating income, including its new photovoltaic business Concentrix.
"The latest information on the second quarter show a level of wafer sales support," said the company in a statement. "On a sequential basis, the quasi-stable plate sales at constant exchange rates to continue to support the initial prediction of the group given the correct orientation of the demand," she adds.
Soitec announced in May that a return to operational balance power could intervene in the first half, Concentrix out after a loss of 28.9 million euros in 2009-2010 and 28.4 million in 2008-2009.
Soitec acquired last December 80% of photovoltaic systems provider Concentrix.
Santander is one step closer Monday toward its goal of becoming a bank offering a full service commercial bank in Germany with the acquisition for 555 million euros in the division for the subject of Swedish SEB.
Santander seeks to expand its presence in Europe, especially Germany and Great Britain, and the high growth markets such as Latin America.
"Germany is an important market for Santander.This acquisition is an important step towards achieving our goal of being a commercial bank offering a full service in Europe, "said its chairman Emilio Botin said in a statement.
The Spanish bank believes that its ratio of Tier One capital could fall by ten basis points due to the acquisition, the amount is close to 500 million previously reported by sources close to the situation.
According to head of operations in Latin America, Santander, Francisco Luzon, quoted by the Financial Times, Santander plans to strengthen Colombia and Peru, where its market shares are between 10 and 20%.
Around 9:15 GMT, Santander and SEB yielded respectively 0.69% and 0.76%, while the Stoxx index comprising the major European banking stocks lost 0.66%.
President Nicolas Sarkozy has decided to keep Anne Lauvergeon at the head of Areva, said Tuesday radio France Info.
Rumors evicting Anne Lauvergeon circulating since the beginning of the year, partly because of dissension in the camp and the French nuclear setback in late 2009 with the loss of a major contract in the UAE.
The decision by the Head of State was expected. In late May, a government source had told the Echo that "exception error on his part brilliantly, it will remain until the end of its mandate" in July 2011.
Anne Lauvergeon has been appointed for the first time as President of the Executive Board of Areva in July 2001. His mandate was renewed in July 2006 and expires in one year.