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Brazilian acquisition for LVMH. The French luxury group said on Friday taking a controlling stake of 70% in Sack's, the leader in sales of perfumes and cosmetics on the Internet and a leading distributor of beauty products in Brazil. No amount has been disclosed about the investment.

This acquisition will enable the world's leading luxury brand Sephora develop the Brazilian market, first in line and in stores, the company said in a statement.

Sack's, founded in 2000 and based in Rio de Janeiro, sells over 270 brands and over 83,000 customers in its database. The site for online sale is one of the three most visited sites in Brazil, with 4 million unique visitors per month. Brazil and beyond, the South American markets are extremely holders for the sale of luxury goods.

Trading – financial transactions – markets do not know the crisis. According to the Financial Times, U.S. banks would have benefited every day to make huge profits in the first quarter. The paper is based on a document with the SEC, the U.S. financial policeman to prove that Goldman Sachs would have earned at least $ 25 million during the 63 days of the first quarter and would have even 35 times, made profits of 100 million dollars. But Goldman Sachs is not the only investment bank cited. JP Morgan's side have conceded through its $ 118 million transactions per day, an average of 5 million dollars a hour.

The performance is particularly noteworthy that the period January-February-March is a time when the markets were nervous and suffering from high volatility.The leaders of Goldman Sachs attributes this success to "a robust risk management.

$ 78.8 billion in sales

These market operations long way to explaining the excellent quarterly results of the two banks. JP Morgan reported net income up 57% year on year to 3.3 billion dollars. For its part, Goldman Sachs announced earnings doubled in the first quarter to 3.3 billion dollars as well.

More broadly, the 14 largest investment banks have announced a total of 78.8 billion dollars in revenue over the first three months of the year. Either their best showing in three years.

Analysts estimate that these figures may give ammunition to advocates of a tax on bank profits and the wider policy to require banking institutions to strengthen their equity.The information falls worse for Goldman Sachs who is the subject of a complaint by the SEC accused him of having misled investors by selling them derivatives-backed U.S. mortgage risk.

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Greece, Portugal and Spain. Southern Europe continues to frighten the markets. The Spanish saw its debt rating one notch worse, with a negative outlook.

Between degradation rate and retention Note

During a joint press conference yesterday, Jean-Claude Trichet, president of the European Central Bank, and Dominique Strauss-Kahn, director of the International Monetary Fund, have called on Germany to take an expeditious decision on aid Greece. Both men say they are confident. German Chancellor Angela Merkel seems he heard the message, since it has declared its intention to activate "as quickly as possible" aid plan.

Fortunately, a decision from the United States has been somewhat reassure financial markets. The Fed has indeed confirmed keep interest rates low for a "prolonged period".And this, despite a rapid recovery of the economy.

In this context, it will be interesting to see how values are changing bank, after they have been two sessions in the red. Above Credit Agricole said Wednesday night that its exposure to sovereign risk in Greece amounted to 850 million euros.

Quarterly Results: Sanofi-Aventis, and Technip for ArcelorMittal

Among the values that have posted Wednesday, PPR has returned to growth in the first quarter after five consecutive quarters of downturn, and said Tuesday anticipate a further acceleration in sales during the year.

The day of Thursday will be rich in quarterly publications: ArcelorMittal, France Telecom, Suez Environment, Sanofi-Aventis, Pernod-Ricard, Vivendi, AXA, Bouygues, Areva or Michelin publish.

Renault has announced that the equity between the group, its Japanese partner Nissan and Germany's Daimler had been made Wednesday. The three groups have formalized their alliance in early April for three to share technologies and reduce costs.

The U.S. unemployment statistics in the heart of the day

On the macroeconomic front, the day will, however, less responsible.On the program, the weekly claims for unemployment benefit, which will be published at approximately 14.30 U.S., unemployment for the month of April in Germany and in April business confidence in the euro area.

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We now know more about the profile of the 16,350 taxpayers who have benefited from the tax shield in 2009. According to documents that Le Figaro was purchased, the 4521 households who have a wealth greater than 7.3 million and an annual income tax of more than 43,761 euros were collected 90.4% of the amount the tax repaid under the shield. Amounts totaled 585.6 million euros in 2009. These affluent taxpayers received an average check of 117,142 euros.

More generally, 47% of the 2009 version of the shield beneficiaries pay the ISF (wealth tax). And they pick …. 99% of repayments. In 2008, the conclusion was the same. "So I think we need to end both the shield and the ISF, while introducing an additional tax on income at 45% and reviewing the taxation of savings.The shield is a wrong answer to a bad tax, "said Jean Arthuis, the president of the centrist Senate Finance Committee.

For those who are not subject to the ISF, the check tax is much less interesting: just 565 euros. These are households with very low incomes but who own their own homes (a common situation at the meeting, among farmers. …) And are in practice pay their property tax. Also found in this category of professionals who have deficits professionals. It remains an anomaly among the beneficiaries of the shield, there are 14 taxpayers with annual income less than 3428 euros but have some assets above 16 million euros. Some suspect heavy use of tax loopholes that understate income

Credit Suisse said Thursday that its chief executive Brady Dougan had received 19.2 million Swiss francs (13 million euros) in cash and stock for the year 2009, making it one of the leaders the more lucrative banking sector.

This high level of pay, despite the profits generated by the bank in 2009 and its recent efforts to make its system more transparent compensation, likely to raise criticism from shareholder activists and political parties in Switzerland, where the Parliament debate new wage rules including the introduction of a ceiling on salaries.

In detail, the head of the Swiss bank has received a base salary of 1.3 million Swiss francs and a bonus of 17.9 million.

Huge side of France

"Such compensation for the CEO of Credit Suisse seems huge in terms of what affect the patterns of French banks," says Cyril Bellanger, at Proxinvest. At Societe Generale, Frederic Oud?a received 1.11 million euros of fixed and variable."He had no options or free shares," says analyst research firm specializing in executive compensation.

At BNP Paribas, Baudouin Prot has received 950,000 euros of fixed and 1.4 million bonus. The bank emerged in 2009 a net profit of 5.8 billion euros (+93%), third in the ranking of the best banking performance in 2009, after Barclays and Santander.

Other DGs have refused their bonuses

In Britain, the CEO of Barclays John Varley declined – as in 2008 – to receive his bonus for Payday Loan Bad Credit . The British bank posted a profit doubled to 10.4 billion pounds over the past year, crushing all its European competitors.The institution intends to distribute 1.5 billion in cash bonuses.

Same attitude towards Royal Bank of Scotland in Edinburgh: Stephen Hester has waived his bonus. The Scottish bank posted a net loss after minority interests of 3.6 billion pounds, about 4.1 billion euros, against a loss of 24.3 billion the previous year.

Back in Switzerland, the CEO of the first institution in Switzerland, UBS, Oswald Gr?bel has waived its variable pay and decided to reduce his base salary of 2 million Swiss francs to 850,000 francs (583,000 euros).It is the responsibility of the Investment Banking Division which was the better off for the year 2009 with a premium of 12.5 million Swiss francs, or 8.6 million.

In late January, in a context where wages are banking scandal in the United States and despite a profit of nearly $ 5 billion in the fourth quarter of 2009, Goldman Sachs has decided to limit the pay of the hundred top leaders based the United Kingdom, one million pounds (1.13 million euros).

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The studio, based in New York could provide between 1.2 billion and 1.5 billion dollars for the recovery of the mythical MetroGoldwynMayer (MGM), as disclosed by the British newspaper Financial Times.

MGM has put up for sale last year, following its inability to pay its bills. She had received several proposals, three were still in contention at the end of last week. The company, which had initially hoped to sell two billion dollars, must be examined this week, not totally exclude the possibility of remaining independent fast cash loans .

The Hollywood studio has contracted a debt of 3.7 billion dollars five years ago, and he suffered falling DVD sales that affects the entire industry.His library of 4,100 films is yet to dream all his competitors.

MGM owns the rights to include the James Bond series, including those who are running. Time Warner owns the news channel CNN and Time Magazine.

Palm is now survive. Friday, the opening of the NYSE, the action of the cellphone maker lost nearly 30%, to $ 4, after the publication of quarterly results disastrous. Since the beginning of the year, diving for more than 50%, completely erasing the gains made in 2009, after the presentation of the Palm Pre, who was to sign the renewal of the brand.

Between December and February, Palm has accumulated cons-performance. Its losses have almost doubled to 22 million dollars and his phones were sold poorly. Although Palm has shipped to retailers smartphones 960,000, almost four times more than a year earlier, but customers still bought 408,000. Result, operators found themselves with huge inventories, and decided to cut off their supplies.Revenues from Palm on the current quarter would be only 150 million dollars, two times less than expected by the market.

Palm is the scenario. "These problems are not going to accelerate the doubts providers and operators" on the future of the brand, wrote Friday morning Peter Misek, analyst at Canaccord Adams, which sets a target price to zero dollars. The operators have observed that, in their shops, customers are more eager to iPhone, Google Android phones and BlackBerry.Under these conditions, application developers are less interested in phones from Palm, which makes them less attractive.

Palm would have to "consider options more extreme"

"We see no quick solution to the challenges facing it: the risk of intensifying competition, and Palm's response seems inadequate," warned Friday Vivek Arya, an analyst at Bank of America / Merrill Lynch. "Palm has at most two or three quarters to take before having to consider more extreme options," she thought. Frontline is the idea of redemption. The names of Nokia, Dell, Hewlett-Packard or even Google, which embarked on the sale of its mobile phones with the Nexus One are among the most frequently mentioned.

Palm remains in effect a few gems. The operating system that runs its phones, webOS, has received very favorable reviews.His team, led by former Apple executive Jon Rubinstein, are recognized for their quality. Furthermore, Palm has an interesting patent portfolio in mobile telephony, while the litigation in this area are increasing. "Obviously, if there is a reasonable proposal, our board of directors must consider," admitted CEO of Palm, while refusing to speculate on a purchase.

While acknowledging a "underperformance very disappointing," Jon Rubinstein holds that "Palm's potential remains strong." "The work we do to improve sales has an impact, we are making great progress on future products, and we prepare to launch new operators with new partners," he said, announcing a new campaign.In 2009, the market share of smartphones in webOS however, was only 0.7%, according to latest figures from Gartner, against 3.9% for Android, 14.4% for the iPhone and 46% for Symbian.

While the Tokyo Stock Exchange is closed on Wednesday because the National Foundation Day, most Asian stock markets continued in the green Wednesday: Hong Kong gained 1.36% at 20,192 points, Taiwan rose 1.10% in 7441 points, Seoul ahead of 1.93% to 3385 points, India climbed 1.25% to 16,120 points and finally Singapore up 0.58% at 2,750 points.

Crude prices were up Thursday in electronic trading in Asia enjoying a decline in the dollar market awaits the release of weekly oil stocks in the United States, dealers said payday advances .

EDF and Veolia will react to new policies

After intervention by Christine Lagarde, who believes that the dual function of Henri Proglio as President of EDF and the Board of Directors of Veolia could not last "forever", the series Policy should react to investors in securities EDF and Veolia Environment. Regarding the latter, information on the atmosphere that weighs the Management Board to have been unveiled by the Parisien this weekend.The services of the fraud control have also searched the premises of a subsidiary group of utilities in December 2009 as part of an investigation into possible price fixing, according to Capital.

April NextRadio TV Group and must publish their annual results after market close.

Sodexo must hold its general meeting at 16:30.

The values of the banking sector, Societe Generale, Credit Agricole, BNP Paribas and Dexia will also be monitored after their heavy falls on Friday.

The businessman Stephane Courbit, combined with the advertising group Publicis, consider buying a 70% shareholding in France Television Advertising by the Tribune. Its proposed takeover could even be validated in the coming days, "understands the daily.

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