Total does not interfere in the discussions Sanofi / Genzyme

Total does not interfere in discussions with Sanofi-Aventis for the acquisition of the US Genzyme but intends to play its role as shareholder of the French pharmaceutical group, said Wednesday the CEO of French oil group.

Banking sources have told Reuters recently that L'Oreal and Total, which together hold around 15% stake in Sanofi, were booked on the proposed acquisition by Genzyme, fearing that the French pharmaceutical group pays its target too expensive.

"I do not think it desirable to comment on the price.We will not interfere in negotiations between the two companies, "said Christophe de Margerie, the margins of the MEDEF Summer University.

But he said that Total, which holds a seat on the board of director of Sanofi that it controls 7.3% of the capital, played the role of administrator, even if such participation was seen as purely financial quick cash.

OFFERS FOR RESUMPTION OF THE REFINERY Lyndsey

Total, which has gradually reduced its stake in Sanofi, will leave the capital by the end of 2012, he said.

"So the future is that of the Sanofi Sanofi, it is more a strategic issue for Total," said Christophe de Margerie.

The CEO of Genzyme said he was prepared on Tuesday to sell the group of biotechnology, but not at the price of 69 dollars per share offered by Sanofi-Aventis.

Christophe de Margerie also said that Total had received offers for the resumption of its Lindsey refinery in the United Kingdom, stating that the candidate would be chosen by the end of the year.

Referring to the outlook for oil prices, he said they were currently "good level" while gas prices are too low according to him now.

The crude is currently trading around $ 74 a barrel on the U.S. market.

European shares were little changed close an

European values have finished little changed as investors resumed their breath after a strong rise due to positive indicators manufacturers in the United States and China on the eve of the key statistic of monthly U.S. unemployment.

The Cac 40 index gained 0.21% or 7.59 points to 3631.43 points.

Keeping interest rates by the ECB, which was expected, did not play on the market.

The cars were searched. The sector index gained 1.33%.Daimler closed up 1.35% to 41 euros after reporting a 7.4% increase in sales of Mercedes and Smart in the U.S. in August.

Saint-Gobain closed up 1% 30.62 euros, supported in recent days by rising home sales and housing starts in France in the second quarter.

Deutsche Bank fell 3.22% to 49.34 euros, traders noting that Merrill Lynch has removed the bank from its list of preferred values to place in its list of values to avoid.

In special situations, the telephone directories publisher Yell has won 13% to 17.74 pence on takeover rumors. According to several traders, there is talk of a bid at 30 pence per share. The name of the U.S. Google is quoted by one of them.

Net income more than tripled to NRJ H1

NRJ Group said Monday net profit more than tripled in the first half of 2010, 9.8 million, thanks to its improved performance in its media activities in France, and anticipates a continued rise in revenue advertising.

The owner of radio NRJ, Nostalgie, Cherie FM and Rire & Chansons MFM and TV NRJ 12 NRJ Hits NRJ and Paris, said in a statement that its Media division and musical events, its core business, reached a result operating income up 29.3% to 21.2 million euros in the first six months of the year.

The TV division has meanwhile halved its current operating loss, $ 4.4 million over the period January to June as against 9.7 million a year earlier.

"During the months of July and August, the group recorded an increase in advertising revenues in France is expected to continue in September," said NRJ.

The group also said it will continue its efforts to control costs during the second half.

Improving outcomes poles Media events and TV and music and expenditure control have enabled NRJ offset the consequences of the decision of the musical "Cleopatra" with final performances took place in January.

The group had published in July sales down 0.6% in the first half of 2010, 165.2 million euros, impacted by the decision of this musical.

NextRadioTV, its main competitor, announced in late July up 19% of its turnover in the first half and an expected improvement in profitability of its activities, radio and television in the second half.

The action NRJ closed Monday down 0.48% to 6.27 euros, giving a market capitalization of nearly 523 million euros against 228 million more for NextRadioTV.

New delay for delivery of first Boeing 787 Dreamliner

The first Boeing 787 Dreamliners scheduled for delivery to half the first quarter 2011, due to a further delay due to the delayed availability of an engine, said Friday the aircraft manufacturer.

Provided by Rolls-Royce, this piece is essential to the final test flights and will not be available until the fall, said Boeing.

A spokesman for Rolls-Royce has announced that the group "is working with Boeing to accelerate the delivery and conform as much as possible to the original schedule.

Last month, Boeing announced that the first delivery of the aircraft to All Nippon Airways (ANA), originally scheduled for late 2010, could be extended into the early weeks of 2011, due to a number of difficulties.

The carrier Nippon considered this delay was "regrettable" and said he was eager to know the date of delivery of the second device. ANA has ordered 55 Boeing 787 Dreamliners. The manufacturer has pledged to deliver eight by April 2011.

Boeing has however assured Friday that the new schedule would not impact its financial forecasts.

The title Rolls-Royce yielded 1.79% at 549 pence to 0900 GMT. The day before, as Boeing has finished the session up 0.92% to 61.32 dollars on Wall Street.

Oil continued its rebound in New York

Oil prices had closed up for the second straight session Thursday on the New York market, supported notably by the weak dollar.

The October contract on the U.S. light crude ended the day on an increase of 84 cents, or 1.16%, to 73.36 dollars a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange.

He had previously traded between 72.54 and 73.98 dollars, but failed to reach the threshold of $ 74.

The barrel had begun a rebound Wednesday after five sessions of decline that had been dropped under 71 dollars, the lowest in eleven weeks.

New fall in unemployment in July

The number of jobseekers fell in category A in France in July for the second consecutive month, according to data released Wednesday by the Ministry of Economy and job center.

The number of jobseekers in category A, which includes those without work and actively seeking employment, fell by 14,400 (-0.5%) last month in France, to 2,676,600, after down 0.3% in June

Compared to July 2009, it grew by 5.4%.

By adding job seekers engaged in a Pool (Class B and C), the number increases by 0.1% in a monthly basis in July (5300 people), after rising 0.4% in June, for a up 8.1% from one year to another.

"In late July 2010, France, 3963.800 people registered at employment center were required to make positive job search (including Dom 4208300), which were 2,676,600 unemployed (Class A) and exercised 1,287,200 reduced activity, short or long (B and C) "indicate the department and job center in a joint statement.

In France, the number of jobseekers Class A decreased 0.5% for men (+5.2% YoY) and 0.6% for women (+5.7% on year).

For categories A, B, C, the apparent increase to 0.2% for men (+8.7% YoY) and 0.1% for women (+7.5% YoY).

DROP OF 2.8% OF YOUTH UNEMPLOYMENT

Among youth under 25 years, the number of unemployed declined by 2.8% in group A compared to June fell by 1.8% in one year.

For categories A, B and C, the youth unemployment down 0.2% on month but a 1.8% increase over one year.

For over 50 years, unemployment has increased instead of 0.8% in group A (+17.6% yoy) and 1.1% for the three main categories (17.1% one year).

The number of long-term unemployed – registered at employment center for a year or more – rose 0.8% in July for categories A, B, C with a mass increase that is over one year (+27.6% ).

Entrances to public service employment in categories A, B and C were down 2.4% from June and were down 4.4% over one year.

The outputs of the same categories were stabilized in the same time but in a monthly increase of 4.1% over one year.

Job offers collected by Pole employment grew 3.6% in July in France and show an increase of 12.7% over one year.

SABMiller and Asahi eyeing Foster's activities

Asahi Breweries and SABMiller are interested in operating in the Australian beer Foster's Group, although the two giants of the brewing world have not yet decided to make a formal bid, officials said Monday from sources near situation.

While analysts say the deal could be for an amount exceeding 10 billion dollars (7.9 billion euros), the Sunday Times reported Sunday that SABMiller was considering acquiring the operations of Foster's in beer for about seven billion pounds (8.6 billion euros).

One source interviewed by Reuters said Monday that Asahi was interested.

The Australian press announcement Monday that his side SABMiller has appointed JPMorgan and Royal Bank of Scotland to advise on this issue but no decision has yet been taken.

The new permit under the Australian group, who decided to split its business in wines and beer, to earn 6.19% to 6.18 Australian dollars to the Sydney Stock Exchange at about 5:30 GMT.

In response to press reports, Foster's, which owns brands including Foster's Lager, Victoria Bitter and Pure Blonde, said he was unaware of any unexpected information, while Asahi did not want to do comments.

SABMiller, which owns the rights to brew Foster's in the U.S., carries about 85% of its profits in the emerging markets of Latin America, Africa and Asia.

The United Kingdom increases VAT

The British finance minister George Osborne said on Tuesday that Parliament would pass the VAT from 17.5% to 20% from next January in the United Kingdom, a measure that will bring 13 billion pounds per year (15.6 billion euros).

A tax on the turnover of banks

The minister, who presented a budget "emergency" and austerity he called "inevitable", said that this and other announced at the same time, were intended to undo the deficit structural (not related to the conditions) in five years.

Among other tax measures, Mr.Osborne also announced, without waiting for the rest of the world, the introduction in January 2011 of a tax on the turnover of the banks, intended to raise two billion pounds per year.

The tax on capital gains will also spend 18% to 28% from midnight.

Lowering the corporate tax

However, he intends to lower a percentage point per year for four years until the 24% corporate tax currently 28%, and increase of £ 1,000 tax allowance for 23 million of taxpayers paying the lower tax bracket (20%), allowing them to save 170 pounds each. He regarded as "the burden would be equitably shared."

Mr.Osborne said he hoped to spend the country's public deficit of 149 billion pounds (179 billion euros) this year (an improvement over the 155 billion provided last week by the Office for fiscal responsibility – OBR ) to 20 billion in 2015/16.

As a percentage of gross domestic product, this deficit will rise from 10.1% of GDP this year (2010/11) to 1.1% of GDP by 2015/16. The structural deficit, for its part would be reduced to nil in five years, he hoped. The Minister also said growth in the light of this budget would be more than 2.6% next year as the OBR had said last week, but 2.3%.

0.4% of Italian GDP in Q2

The Italian economy grew by 0.4% in the second quarter, a figure in line with analysts' forecasts, which confirms that the recovery is on track even if domestic demand remains weak.

On an annual basis, the gross domestic product (GDP) grew 1.1% in Italy, again as expected analysts polled by Reuters.

In the first quarter, the Italian GDP had revealed an increase of 0.4% sequentially and 0.5% annual rate.

The sectors of industry and services showed a quarterly growth, while activity in the agricultural sector has shrunk, the agency said National Statistics, Istat.

Italy is the first major euro zone countries to publish figures of GDP for the second quarter.

"They are consistent with expectations and, in general, these are good figures for the Italian economy," said Torge Middendorf, an economist at West LB.

"If we look at the latest statistics on production of consumer goods, retail sales and new car registrations, all of which were small, this paints a picture of the consumer is not really encouraging," shade there.

"The growth has mainly supported by a strong increase in inventories and investment, especially in equipment."

China is testing the resilience of banks to real estate crash

The Chinese banking regulator ordered the country's credit institutions to conduct stress tests to assess their resistance to a halving of house prices housing in larger cities, we learn from regulatory and banking sources .

The Banking Regulatory Commission has also asked banks to stop lending mortgages to people buying a third home in Beijing, Shanghai, Shenzhen and Hangzhou, they added the sources.

This new evidence of the willingness of Beijing to combat land speculation comes as prices have soared in major Chinese cities.The government fears that the soaring property prices is self-sustaining households prevents access to the property.

"This is a strong signal that the government is trying to give, by showing that it is quite determined to keep house prices under control, even though it is very unlikely that he decided to restrictive measures short term, "said David Ng, real estate analyst at RBS in Hong Kong.

"There will certainly be no easing measures for the moment," he added.

A previous test had shown that resistance of Chinese banks could pass through a 30% drop in property prices without incurring large increases in the ratio of bad loans.

STRICT CONTROLS

Credit institutions must now ask their clients a deposit of 60% of the second second home they wish to purchase in four cities, and will not offer them the rates and a half times higher than the rate of the central bank.

These new requirements state ministerial instructions in April, requiring banks to "increase substantially" the required installment and mortgage rates for those buyers.

Banks may also decide to stop lending to these purchasers in cities where prices are too high or growing too fast, or in case of shortage of housing, said the Business Council of State of the People's Republic China.

Sources close to the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China in Shanghai, said the bank had already stopped this week to offer loans to buyers of a third house in this city.

Almost all banks have adopted this same behavior in Beijing, according to sources interviewed.

Xia Bin, an expert with the Chinese central bank, told China Daily that the brakes placed on the property market, following the record growth in loans last year, had produced the expected results.

The property prices in 70 major Chinese cities fell 0.1% in June compared to May, is the first monthly decline since February 2009.Sales volumes have also declined significantly.

According to Xia Bin, an increase in taxation of capital gains may be an effective measure to combat short-term speculation and, more generally, it is too early for the government relaxes its credit policy.

"The macroeconomic controls must be implemented strictly in the months to come," he added.