The new hypermarket Carrefour way, space is reorganized into nine clusters, including the decoration and textiles. "The store will be more competitive in terms of price," says Lars Olofsson. A whole cluster will focus on "special events" with "two major themes monthly surprise in store for" customers, "says the CEO.

Carrefour, the world of large retailers, is facing an erosion of customers of supermarkets. The context is not easy, admits Lars Olofsson: "I think in the coming months, consumption will remain stable.(…) It remains a gloomy background.

The group would pull through, however, better than its competitors. "In France, Carrefour's market share of 24% has increased by almost a point since the beginning of the year on a constant basis," enthuses the director general. The group achieved a turnover of 24.9 billion euros in the second quarter, up 6.3%. The interim results will be presented August 31.

Karstadt stores, whose most famous department store KaDeWe in Berlin, however, have been awarded last June to the investor Nicolas Berggruen associated with group BCBG Max Azria fashion that takes 20% stake. The pair pledged to resume all their 120 stores with 26,000 employees.

However, the sale is not finalized yet: it remains in effect suspended from a rental agreement negotiated between, on one hand, the two prospective owners and, secondly, Highstreet, which owns the Karstadt department stores walls. According to Dow Jones Newswire, the period of exclusivity granted to Berggruen expires on August 10 but would extend the financier.Borletti plans to oppose it by sending a letter Thursday to the director of Karstadt.

"The best offer" by Borletti

The Italian investor, Maurizio Borletti is the boss, so take advantage of these difficult negotiations to make its own offer, which according to him, is "the best deal for all parties." The group proposes to inject 100 million euros in department stores online payday loans. It undertakes not to dismantle the company and reinvest the profits and dividends for five years.

Borletti also promises not to close any stores in the short-term and 'preservation of employees' basic ':' no new termination, no increase in hours worked or pay cut, "he assures.

In addition, Borletti holder of 2% of capital Highstreet since 2007, says he would not need to renegotiate the rent.

Founded in 1860, the family group Borletti invested exclusively in department stores over the past five years. It has acquired shares in 2005 in the Italian department store La Rinacente and has invested the following year, in the French department store Printemps.

For its part, the union Verdi, which had welcomed the offer of Berggrün, said that the proposal Borletti arrived so late was not serious. "Mr. Borletti knew the deadline was the end of May, said a door-paroel Verdi at Berliner Zeitung.If he wanted to make a serious offer, he would have been able to do so. According to the German daily, including Verdi doubt that Borletti be able to make 100 million euros announced and suspected to be primarily concerned with Italian luxury stores Karstadt.

The shares of exporting firms are saddled the once heavily penalized by a strong yen and concerns about the U.S. economy.Sony so on, we let go of 1.19%, and Canon was able to take 0.66% after losing almost 4% in session.

The dollar was worth only 85.30 to 85.40 yen Wednesday in mid-session in Asia, a level at which it was not down for eight months and is lower than that on which important Nippon groups have based their forecast revenues and profits.

In terms of company announcements, the Japanese manufacturer of motorcycles and marine equipment Yamaha Motor sharply raised its forecast Wednesday for the annual results, having exceeded its goals in the first half of calendar year, helped by sales of mopeds in Asia. Yamaha now expects an annual turnover of 1.3 trillion yen (1.25 trillion previously expected cons), an increase of 12.7% over one year.It now expects an operating profit of 45 billion annually (instead of 10) and expects to complete the year with a net profit of 25 billion so he could just see the balance.

Ambiance less bearish in the rest of Asia

In Hong Kong, even, the Hang Seng returned to the equilibrium toward 7:00 and stood at 21,455.8 points. In Shanghai, the MIC 30 fold from 0.54% to 2850.5 points. In Sydney, the S & P / ASX was down 0.64% to 4545.2 points.

Oil prices fell Wednesday in Asia, while remaining above 82 dollars a barrel. In morning trading, a barrel of light sweet crude for delivery in September yielded 14 cents to 82.41 dollars a barrel.

The tanker registered in effect a pretax charge of $ 32.2 billion in its accounts. An amount which includes the escrow account of $ 20 billion promised to the U.S. authorities to ensure all compensation and cleanup costs and damages incurred to date, 2.9 billion dollars.The loss, compared to that office, is limited by a good result of oil and a favorable tax effect of about 7.188 billion dollars.

And to honor this provision, the Group announced the sale of 30 billion dollars in assets over the next 18 months, including assets related to oil exploration.

The ownership policy has been revised

The group's ownership policy is revised. Management pointed out "our shareholders have received a dividend since the explosion of the platform and the oil spill that followed it." The leaders said "the Council will decide whether to distribute a dividend in the publication of results for the fourth quarter of 2010 to February 2011.

Finally, the announced departure of Tony Hayward is now official.The CEO of the group notorious for its mismanagement of the oil spill will be replaced by the American Robert Dudley. Hayward will share the leadership for its non-executive of TNK-BP. He will receive compensation equivalent to one year's salary, or 1,045,000 pounds (1,250,000 euros). Hayward had angered the U.S. administration for having complained of being overstretched since the beginning of the disaster and for having, during his congressional testimony, tried to dodge responsibility for his group.

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For the full year 2010, Kaufman & Broad confirms in a statement that "a return to positive net income, which will however continue to carry the weight of years, with a view to improvement."

"The results of the second quarter of 2010 are part of the positive dynamic recorded in the first quarter, confirming the validity of the strategy of refocusing the business offer implemented in late 2008 on products more compact, less expensive and more suitable at the request of first time buyers and investors, "said CEO Guy Nafilyan, quoted in the press release.

Turnover down

In the first half of 2010, home sales rose 55% in value to $ 675 million euros free credit report and score. "We restart faster than the overall market," says Guy Nafilyan. In contrast, the turnover stood at the promoter of 385.7 million euros, down 7.6% over the first half of 2009.

Kaufman & Broad has announced it has signed a memorandum of agreement for the sale of all its shares and interests in Senior Health (homes of elderly dependents) for a total price of 30.7 million euros.

Completion of the transaction is subject to a number of conditions to be met by September 30, 2010 at the latest, the statement said, explaining that the buyer's name can not be revealed.

Since the beginning of the year, as Kaufman & Broad has won less than 5%. On Thursday, the title rose 5.15% at 17.75 euros.

Two years after the outbreak of the financial crisis of 2008-2009, part of the United States with the bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers, the European Parliament in Strasbourg approved the text, which was the subject of a June 30 Agreement between the elected and the states of the EU.

In 2011, the bonus must not be disproportionate to the fixed salary and cash bonuses will be capped at 30% of the total premium, or 20% on premiums particularly important.

End outlandish bonuses

Much of the bonus will be paid immediately and will not be after a period of at least three years to allow the employer to recover some cases where investment does not function as expected.

Finally, at least 50% of a total bonus will be paid as contingent capital, which can be recalled in case of banking difficulties, so that taxpayers do not end up in the front line when a bank gets into difficulties.

In the case of banks that receive public subsidies, the text also provides that "no variable compensation should be paid the officers of the institution unless it is justified."

"Europe gets the rules of coaching salaries of bankers and traders with the most aggressive in the world," said a French Green MEP, Canfin Pascal, who negotiated the text free credit reports. "By limiting the proportion of variable pay in total compensation, this text will finally put an end to extravagant bonuses synonymous with extravagant risks," he added.

A text to the liking of the banking sector

"Two years after the outbreak of the global financial crisis, these tough new rules on bonuses will transform the culture of bonuses and incentives to end the excessive risk-taking", claimed that his side the Socialist Arlene McCarthy, parliamentary rapporteur on file at the agreement in principle on June 30

The text is however not to the liking of the banking sector."We believe that the agreement goes too far, because at the international level, there are already some principles" in the form of recommendations that were made including the Financial Stability Board (FSB), had informed the AFP secretary general of the European Banking Federation, Guido Ravoet after the tentative agreement. "We believe that this is not the public authorities to make amounts, percentages," he added, saying that this responsibility should be left to banks.

"If the international level, it does not follow Europe, European banks have a competitive disadvantage," says Guido Ravoet, who believes that "financial centers like New York, Singapore and Hong Kong will benefit."

Founded in 1996 and based in Boston, ITA has developed expertise "hailed as a catalyst for change in the travel industry online" the joint statement payday advance. "The technology opens up exciting possibilities for creating new ways for users to easily'll find more information on flights ilgne," said Google CEO Eric Schmidt.

LE FIGARO. – You transfer some of your activities in Great Britain. Would you withdraw from the country?

Henri de Castries. – No, no way. It is not out of the United Kingdom but we concentrate, as in our other markets, segments on the most strategic and fastest growing.Therefore we give only a part of our life insurance in Britain: the activities of traditional life insurance, as we had also stopped developing in 2002 because they no longer matched the expectations of our customers while being highly capital consuming. However, we maintain a portfolio of more modern products, whose growth prospects seem high and where margins are more consistent with the group average which is between 15% and 20%. Moreover, the operation does not damage insurance, or health.With this transaction for 2.75 billion pounds (3.3 billion euros), we derive the capital that we can redeploy where customer needs are the greatest.

Is this a turning point in your strategy? And should we expect AXA on acquisitions in emerging markets?

The crisis has caused a market decline and a new distribution of growth areas. It has not changed the major principles of our strategy, instead. We'll continue developing our core businesses for damages, life insurance, asset management through organic growth and, opportunistically, through acquisitions. The developed markets still have good growth prospects, even if only from the effect of demographic changes, but we work in parallel on an allocation of our resources to emerging countries in Asia, of course, but not only.There are actually three other major areas of expansion: the Central and Eastern Europe, the Mediterranean area and Latin America. In Asia, growth is actually attractive. But the modalities of development of foreign players are still complex, especially in China and India. So do not confine our ambitions to these two major markets.

In Asia, the failure of the attempted takeover by Prudential AIA offers does it generate new opportunities?

Prudential was willing to put a price on the table that seemed very exaggerated. Our priority in Asia today is to conclude the transaction on Axa Asia Pacific. Then we'll see …

In Europe, the prudential rules could push banks to divest their insurance subsidiaries. Axa is he interested?

We observe closely what is happening.But no movement of magnitude is possible – for Axa as with all other major players – as we are not clear about what will be the regulation of the bank and the insurance. Then we will examine the opportunities. But I prefer to say at the outset that we, the insurers will not be easy these suppliers of capital as some might hope. We are ready to balanced partnerships with banks. But the distribution network – in this case banking – should not count on us to collect commissions unreasonable.

What about your thoughts on the construction of a new business plan?

It is actually an ongoing process, but we do actually re-adjustment of our business plan in light of the crisis, which has changed the level of our market and changed their dynamics.The result of our thoughts on our new objectives will be known early next year.

How do you rate prudential reforms as they prepare?

Insurers who had managed to remain faithful to their trades have weathered to the crisis. No European player has needed to raise capital. We agree with the economic approach to Solvency II proposes that risk, but be careful to calibrate as insurers meet an essential mission: they are long term investors, thus stabilizing the natural system. Nobody has an interest in an excess of zeal on the part of the prudential regulator activity handicap players like us. Therefore, the new standards should not result in additional capital needs. More broadly, these reforms raise a fundamental question: Europeans' appetite for risk.This is a new phase of debate on the precautionary principle: there is too much caution can be harmful. In this case, it can cause no growth. It must strike the right balance.

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Many hedge funds were originally installed in the Cayman because it was one of the few countries to allow the managers the freedom of action they need. "But since then other countries like Ireland and Luxembourg have changed their laws and created vehicles that hedge funds can use.All hedge funds that we have been created recently in Luxembourg, "said Laurent Dupeyron, CEO of Olympia.

Many managers even go further and create ordinary mutual funds, subject to the same European regulations (UCIT III) than any ordinary fund. Management is a hedge fund, but not the status. This boosted some professionals. "In these funds, subscribers must be able to leave their money every fortnight. If the markets undergo a new liquidity crisis, it would be very difficult to achieve for managers, "says Emmanuel Boussard Boussard & Gavaudan president. But hedge funds have no choice. Investors are jostling as they used to invest their capital home."Today, especially in private banks, customers are interested in hedge fund performance, but want liquid funds and regulated," says one Axa IM. And as for hedge funds, the customer is king.

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