We will talk to the head of companies that reported earnings. Hello, welcome to countdown. The ecb gets ready to dig over banking remission in europe. Tucker, p with all paul tucker one of the keynote speakers. He warned there is no quick fix to shore up europe lenders. It will take some good framework. Legislation is needed, but the , and theyestructure need to issue bonds. Bondholders need to take losses without depositors taking law is. Losses. Not all banks are structured that way. Fighting continues in Eastern Ukraine. Russia is calling for a sees higher while ukraine continues to accuse russia that ceasefire while ukraine continues to accuse russia of stoking the fire. Where are we, hans . Any progress . It will magically the latest ischancellor Angela Merkel considering a visit to tm. Kiev. Yesterday we had a day of diplomacy. They are accused of attacking a civilian convoy, saying there are dozens of death. Foreigny in early in minister lavrov called for a ceasefire. Foreignhat call to the minister of ukraine. Here is what he had to say. Bilateralut ceasefire it is about bilateral ceasefire. It is about the real process but russian commitment to stop shelling and stop terrorism on the ground. Until certain preconditions are met. One of those is rush. Is thatnd applying russia stop arming and applying. Office is only saying she has spoken with poroshenko and is can do during it, but nothing firm has considering it did nothing firm has an set. Ask where are we for another round of talks . The Foreign Ministers are going back and reporting to their president. That is mr. Putin and mr. Poroshenko. They have to decide what the next steps are. To have be fruitful another round of talks . The foreign minister of germany said they make some progress. Its very difficult to see where that progress was. The ukrainian minister called it moderate progress. As you mentioned that aid convoy from insideis still not ukraine proper. Thanks for the latest. The shipping and industrial giant transports around 15 of the worlds containers. Betweennting tension russia and ukraine the company could be heavily impacted. Carolinas here to tell us the details. Its all about the shipping containers we care about. It makes about 40 of sales for the Parent Company. Other areas are in. El ofan get a real fe what it is like out there. They have an very nervous about the Russia Ukraine incident. No one is interested. International trade has global advantage. Clearly it is something that could impact their overall business. So far too early to comment on what the possible effect could be. The sanctions against russia might not be that terrible. They could go to latin america. They could go to asia. It doesnt matter where youre getting it wrong as long as it somewhere. Red we want to see how geopolitics is affected. We have stability in thailand, nigeria, the middle east. This is not that shocking. This is something these companies, against on quite a regular , against come against on a regular basis. Where are we on that story . Overall improving the rates and taking capacity out of the system. What is the view . A main issue has been overcapacity. A massively invested in these huge vessels. Vessel, one particular the biggest in the world. You have theime financial crisis. Not great timing. At the same time you have this overcapacity. Freight rises begin to tumble. Get they want to do is key players to decide to share. Essels from asia to europe, transatlantic and transpacific route. Thinksaid, what do you you are doing . You have got far too much control of the overall market. Three is the french player. He team them together. China said, you have almost half of the overall market from the far east to europe. Were worried about that. They are trying to push ahead with just the number two player. Off want to get it passed by 2013. They still have to get regulatory approval. They still have a massive market share on the far east route. I think it is 30 . The regulators might still say, sorry, this is an going through. Then what do they do . But you have to tackle overcapacity in a way they have already been doing. In the First Quarter they were quite a standout. They managed to reduce cost. They have higher volume of freight. They did actually see a bit of a blow. The United States is doing better. We had china increasing exports. Help the amount of trade we were seeing. Maybe they could survive without this kind of deal. They do want to tackle this overcapacity. Freight volumes went up, but freight rate dropped five percent. Theyre having to cut costs. If you want a gauge of isight rates, the baltic that gauge. It is a real bellwether. Aspeaked in 2008. It fell in 2012. 0 value lost 90 of it since the heart of the financial crisis. That shows you what has happened to trade. I wouldnt be alive without bloomberg intelligence. They say this drop in overall freight is perhaps going to be valid out by liquefied natural gas production. The consumption in china which might actually begin to balance things out. You might see more scrappage. Rather than reducing natural capacity you have scrappage growth on the industry. Do you remember the graphic of the day in the old days . Asked mark is trying to terrible memories. We many times focused. Graphic of the day. Join me on twitter. Dont encourage him. With thesee back numbers. We are going to bring you an neilview with the ceo anderson. That is just after 8 00. We will get the health check on the construction industry. Reports biggest builder at 7 a. M. We will bring you the figures. Then we will speak to the ceo afterwards. We will delve into the results with Albert Manifold. Still ahead negotiations between russia and ukraine seemingly going nowhere. Could mom albion line for more be inons could moscow line for more sanctions . Its time for company news. Guiltymer trader pleaded of conspiring in a new york court. And pleading guilty to us will conspiracy count. A single conspiracy count. Largest firmsorld are considering bids for the Service Operator according to people familiar with the matter. A microsoft Cloud Computing a majorsperry and outage that lasted for five Services Part of a plan to remake the company. Sight to the fighting in ukraine. What is with the acts of the overall rossbach for the struggling economy. About what Little Common ground there is between ukraine and russia. You see the Common Ground . Do you see a resolution in the near future or not . I dont be a Common Ground that the moment. We had these talks in berlin. For want on they went on five hours. I think the real problem is for putin to extricate himself from the situation. He needs to get a facesaving measure. Some measure might give a bit more cost additional reform in ukraine, a bit more devolved power to the russians in Eastern Ukraine. How is that to the government and ukraine . They are talking to try to end the violence, but the moment i cant see this domain in broken. Were in a deescalation. Is it her to say we are in a deescalation mode but there is a possibility of more sanctions if we cant in this convoy over the border . Where are we with the aid convoy . They are trying to decide what happens to the aid convoy. What they really want to focus on is to try to get a solution to the overall problem. The aid convoy is one element. There were talks they had come to some sort of agreement that hasnt read published. That may well get into the country. Sanctions, are they really beginning to have an influence. Influence. We see the engineering areaterals in that deal excluded from sanctions. How tough are the sanctions at the moment . When will we see the real impact . I think we take a step active we go back to the original sanctions. Those see some impact of sanctions. They were mainly mr. Putins friends. We collect some m a indicators. We do some surveys. What they show was a big hit to Business Confidence right after the sanctions were imposed and to consumers as well. Oft we have seen is a bit ounce back and confident for business is. In our july survey we saw Business Confidence bounced back. The initial impact appears to have faded. Have they covered the time since the downing of inmates 17 . Mh17 . Were releasing the data. I would ask you to see a bit of a hit. That would include the sanctions that have been imposed. They are a lot stronger than previous nation. Talk to us about the economy Second Quarter. Will it fall into recession, the russian economy, and the second half of the year or not . I think secondquarter gdp is a bit stronger than we expect it. Deeply. Ook i think we will see sentiment fall over the next couple months given the renewed sanctions and the downing of a Malaysian Airlines plane. We are still seeing capital outflow flowing very quickly. I imagine by the end of the year we would be lucky to see positive growth. Havest that backdrop we strong inflationary pressures in russia as well which probably arent going to be helped by food sanctions russia has imposed. In terms of the central bank, they may need to raise Interest Rates again. Hold that thought. We are going to talk about the central bank, about inflation. The chief economist joins us after the break. Stay with us. Welcome back. Still with us is the chief economist. Before we went to the break we were about to touch on the currency, and the Russian Central Bank widen the trading dan. Ban. Were you surprised . It does emote little bizarre. Seem a little bizarre. He have some confidence the ruble will remain relatively stable. Band is to widen the part of a longterm view. What a want to do is move towards an inflation targeting regime. In order that to be affect those two ed the current the currency to refloat. As you say, it is potentially a slightly risky move. They cand the caveat still intervene. Indicates 79 chance they will lose more. Do you think the central bank will be worried about another depressurization in the currency . That is quite a scary number to be honest. Is going ont what in terms of the potential food sanctions, in terms of the impact on inflation in the second half of the year, i think that is another indication. Its quite possible we will see a lot more downturn. Percenttion was seven through july. The ambition is to have inflation at four percent next year. Achievable or not . It is not achievable. Are think the central bank white committed to bearing down on inflation. I do think we will see more rate hikes in the second half of the year. When the russian economy is flattened, it is back in terms of growth. Not a pretty picture. Lets look at the flip side. How does europe become affect it by the ban on imports . Countries are very reluctant. What is going to be the impact on their economies . It is not insignificant, but as a whole probably wont put in on the macro level. There are other countries that poorlyng to fare more because of their geographical closeness to russia. Germany exports an anonymous amount of pork products as well. There will be a hit there. A great deal of a rowley has been had with some of the a ralley has been had with the food reducers. It is not enough to wrap up food reduction. Is that a Fair Assessment . Inre is too much overdone up. S of being able to ramp they think they can do everything themselves, but these will take time. I would be buying shares in brazilian food producers. Termsis a lot of talk in of meat exports. That is where i would put my money. There you go. At least you have something to wake up to. Break, tips for better banking. We are going to bring you our interview with the former Deputy Governor. Welcome back to countdown. I meant is cranny. Time for your 6 30 fx check. We start off with dollar sterling because it is cpi today, Consumer Price index in the u. K. Expecting it to dip to 1. 8 . Retiredy for sterling to to retest for a sixyear high. This currency is oversold. It is down nearly 3 from its of 1. 7192. 7192 1. 71 by the end of next month. Cpi data could be friendly to the market. We expect the bit of a dip their. Give mark carney the grace and favor he needs to keep rates lower for longer. Lets have a look at the ozzie dollar. The aussie dollar. It is trading higher by about an at 0. 9338. 8 growth will likely have slowed. Could it be that you get another cut . We will wait and see. These other Bloomberg Top headlines. Gentle german chancellor Angela Merkel will visit ukraine with for talks with the key of government. The Chancellors Office declined to comment on a date after an earlier report that it would happen this weekend. She also ruled out nato combat troops in eastern europe. Obama says thek u. S. Will continue limited airstrikes in iraq to support Kurdish Forces who are battling militants for control of a key dam. He says the u. S. Is also working to pull together an International Coalition to support humanitarian relief in northern iraq. Obama is also sending his attorney general eric holder to a misery suburb to help calm a weeks worth of unrest. Protesters in ferguson have clashed with police and thrown molotov cocktails after a white Police Officer shot and killed an unarmed black teenager. Yesterday, the governor called in federal troops to help enforce calm. Now is a time for healing and peace and calm on the streets of ferguson. Now is the time for an open and transparent process to see that justice is done. We will be reporting the latest results. Of 30 point 6 billion. What else can we expect from the mining giants . David inglis is standing by for us in hong kong with a look further ahead. Good morning, david. He mentioned some of the numbers we are expecting. What is in store for this Huge Mining Company ahead . They flagged to this quite well. We are probably looking at divesting. This could be the biggest structural change. Years of asset sales have reaped more than 5 billion or even that was below estimates. Php will be focusing on what it calls its fourth pillar, iron , even a fifth which ash. The major talking point will really be about divesting of these noncore assets into what you call it emerged unit. 12 billion. Were talking about everything from aluminum to nickel. Assets, we know that bhp is the worlds biggest producer of coke and coal. You have lower prices and more competition and you have a dwindling contribution at the bottom line. In 2013, cole contributed only 746 million. Showshe Bank Forecast only 525 million in 2014. At as alooked nonethical investment. That is a line were looking forward to. Hisorts its latest latest results. We are expecting on what analysts have told us. It 3 billion Share Buyback and as you mentioned a 27 improvement in profit. Theres also talk that perhaps we can see the u. K. And australia a dual listing may come to an end. A lot to watch for. It could be one of the bigger stories of the day. Back to you. Bhp billiton releases numbers in just about an hour. It comes as the ecb gets set to take over industry supervision in europe this november. One of the keynote speakers is the former deputy of the bank of england. He started by asking him how long it would take to reform lenders and ensure they dont meet the same fate as Banco Spirito santo. It will take some years to put a good resolution in place. Legislation is needed. That is been done by the european direct of. Also, the banks need to restructure and they need to issue bonds so that the bondholders can take losses. The bondholders need to take losses without the depositors taking losses. This requires banks to be structured in the appropriate way. Not all banks are structured in the appropriate way now. I think what we can take from banker spirit to santo is two things. First of all, subordinated bondholders did take losses. That is good, they should. Other bondholders, senior bondholders didnt. There was an in dash there was an injection of resources from the portuguese government. That may have been the right thing to do in the particular circumstances, but it should not set a precedent for the future. The steadystate regime has to be one in which bondholders take losses and not this date. Im not criticizing the portuguese, they may have done exactly the right thing, but complete, then is should not set a precedent. Losses have to go to bondholders. Including the senior bondholders. As you say, it will take time until other regulations are in. Other other regulations in the European Union sufficient to have this coming in over the coming years . There are two parts to this. First, do the authorities have the right set up hours . I think they do. It follows a global standard. The second thing is requiring systemic banks, big banks, to have a certain mass value of bonds in issue. Global policy on that is going to be decided at the summit in orsbane in september october. That is the next step, not only for europe, but in fact for the world. We will have to see what they can offer. I hope it is ambitious. What should they come up with . I think they should require have an amounto of bonds in issue that is at least as to the amount of equity that they are required to have very it the biggest global banks are required to have equity of about roughly 10 of their socalled risk weighted accident assets. I think they should be required to have bond issue of 10 . That order of magnitude. At the market for this particular type of security, you think theres enough clarity for investors to actually buy like this . Are the certain enough that those rules are being kept . And are theybuying priced appropriately . I dont think this is overwhelmingly hard. After all, throughout the world, investors by regular Corporate Bonds and regular Corporate Bonds get restructured and converted into equity. The chapter 11 and the United States. This can be done. With the caveat, which is that it should not be allowed for one bank to hold another banks bonds. It should not be allowed for socalled shadow banks to hold a banks bonds, because then all youre doing is transmitting the trouble from one part of the Banking Center to another part. Insurance companies, pension funds, regular mutual funds, the bedrock should probably have limits on how much of their portfolio is accounted for by bank bonds. That is only common sense. I dont think theres anything radical entailed by that. Stay with bloomberg to the because we will be speaking to some of the biggest speakers at the forum on finance live from salzburg throughout the morning. Just after 9 00 a. M. London time we are joined by the bundesbank a bankingber who says union is the most ambitious project since the introduction of the euro. Then a little bit later we will be speaking to hsbc chairman to get his take on the future of banking. The microsoft cloud goes down. Well take a look at what was behind the glitch that shut down microsofts Cloud Computing business for five hours. What it means for chief secutive Satya Nadella turnaround plan. Time for today is in good news. Report that air asia is japans thirdlargest airline has risk of going out of business. The regions biggest budget theypulled out of deny there been any discussions. That was on twitter. Paying as deal to much as 300 Million Dollars to resolve claims by new yorks banking regulator. Suspiciouslag transactions after promising to do so in 2012. A person with knowledge of the matter said. Lindt chocolates reported firsthalf profits that the estimates. Reiterated itso outlook. Microsoft Cloud Computing was down for five hours yesterday. Jack clark joins us now on the phone. What went wrong . Multiple key components failed in multiple data centers around the world at once, which is the concerning thing. Tend to only fail in a single region at a time. That is where the concern came from. It is had a failure before, hasnt it, jack . Yes, its last of your failure was when its storage went down in february 2013. The last time amazon had a august 2011,re in some of it launched sometime after amazon and google. It went through growing pains. Forow embarrassing is this ceo Satya Nadella. Mobileeen banging the first, clout first drum for months on end, hasnt he . He has. Given his background working in r d, he knows just how hard the stuff is. Well he tends to be load grumpy, he knows this is a good sign. Is having problems like this comment means theres lots of demand for its Cloud Services as well. It is regrettable that the failure has reached the public in this way. Give us a sense of how important this business is to microsoft right now. This year, the cloud division, which as it is predicted to do about 4. 4 billion. That may be less than 5 of microsofts predicted full revenue for the year, but it is a crucial area. They are moving clout first, mobile world. Mandela is so big on the business that he is willing to douse himself and a bucket of ice water. Big on theis so business that he is willing to douse himself with ice water. Us live fromining San Francisco after the Cloud Computing service had an outage that lasted around five hours yesterday. The former ceo of microsoft has a new title. Bloombergs trish regan talks about ballmers new role as the owner of the l. A. Basketball team the clippers. Market. Is a unique i think it is a phenomenal opportunity. Believe me, when you look at Tech Companies with no earnings and huge valuations, and a lot of downside, the clippers looked like a really well valued team to me, really well valued. There are Tech Companies with market caps of a hundred 50 billion the make any money. Clippers make money. Retired. Im not looking for a new fulltime job. The side ofngthen the clippers. When you look at microsoft right now and you see the leadership in place, how would you grade what Satya Nadella is doing right now . Tya is off to a fantastic start. I people like to pretend there is a shortterm gain but there is not, it is long term gain. Businesses are built not in months and years. In, i think he is a heckuva good six months. The truth is, it will take years before we really know how well he is doing. 18,000 people were laid off. By the decision driven management team. Bastad rowan companies. Dashboards dont run Companies Boards dont run companies. Heelys at opportunity to make other changes that he felt would streamline and make microsoft better. Obviously the board is supportive. That is why they put him in the job to run the company. I loved everything we were doing. Satya nadella gets to develop his own vision and he gets articulated in his own time. As a board we can challenge him but he hasstions, our support and when he wants to speak on that he can. I think there are some fundamental things a company has to do for its future. He puts that under the umbrella of mobile first, clout first. To really do that requires skills and cloud sales Hardware Technology and hardware sales. New places to go. He will describe how he wants to get there. Where are you going to set during the games . . Ll you be courtside. I am definitely the kind of guy who will sit courtside. That is a number one thing we were joking about is where do you like to sit. I always said i like to sit under the basket. Who owns the trail blazers sits under the basket. We will figure that out. Problem toa good have. Im looking forward to seeing you cheer on the sidelines. I am an enthusiastic fan. When i come to the games i am a fan. Of course he is going to sit on the court after spending all that money. Youtube is having to give warnings about content. We look at the next. At that next. Welcome back to countdown. I managed cranny. I know you have been sitting in your seats. One is a photo of the day in my newspaper section . Actually quite like this. This is incredible. Big band inmage of london. That is what it takes to clean the face board. How long does it take . It doesnt say. Lets read the line underneath. Specialist cleaners down one face of the clock. To inspect and scrub the giant timepiece. Of course there are four. Dangerous jobs. Ive always thought this. Whenever you watch a video, and ihanna. Whatby rehirin you parents tell their kids . In october, theres going to be a trial. They will have a little test to ageif you can put restrictions on music videos. It will be new music videos. Many are feeling that maybe they do need to be imposed on miley cyruswrecking ball. Generally, this is David Cameron announcing this. Haveently, many parents been getting slightly worried about how they stop this kind of internet content going to their young childrens minds. They want to have an age range of 12 and 15 and 18. It is all in education. I approve of that. Barry normand who was the bbc film critic tommy spoke out about robin williams. He claimed his films like dead good willety and hunting. He slammed his bat films. He said he made no secret of his addiction to drugs and alcohol but there was another addiction which he never made it but which became increasingly evident in his own work. Too saccharine, tooth rotting sentimentality. With a bat films made when drink or drugs had their part . We dont all agree, barry. Countdown continues in the next hour. We have the ceos of crh. Stay with us. Former boe Deputy Governor says why the city of london is a benefit for europe. I hope everybody sees london as a european asset, one in which they each have a stake. That is one of the reasons for the u. K. To stay in the eu. Some the biggest names in the industry including hsbc chairman douglas phillips. The red cross is still working out the details of a safe passage plan for russias aid convoy to ukraine. From the uksgs two biggest Building Companies are reporting now, we will speak to simmons ceo first and crh chief executive in an exclusive interview. Welcome to countdown, i mark barton. And i manus cranny. 7 00 youre in london. Homebuilder is called persimmon. Number one. The pretax profit for the first half up by 57 . Home completions in the first half. Every up by 33 . It is operating its operating margin rising to 17 point 7 . a 22 ahead of last year as well. Lets cut to the chase. Company,k to of the persimmons ceo. This is a bloomberg first interview. Good morning, sir. Thank you so much for joining us. The metrics are all good. Karen forward sales by 22 , what is this slowdown in the Housing Market we are reading about . We seeing good levels of demand, plenty of visitors to our sites and we are busy trying to build houses to meet that demand. Can you elaborate on what i , the survey evidence which seems to show predominantly in london but nationally as well that the Housing Market is coming off at a boil. What is your take . Slowdowning is slight through the summer but that is a usual seasonal situation. We are more than comfortable with that. The volumes were seeing through our business are increased over the previous year. We are pleased with the way were going. Up by about 6 year on year. We see a very good market flow. We have good forward sales of 1. 5 billion and we are working very hard to build houses to meet that additional demand that were seeing. You talk about your ambitions in terms of the number of sites that you want to get started on and you have been lobbying government to change their view or change legislation in terms of the ability to develop sites. What are they responding to you on and how much is that holding your business back . I think were seeing some very good improvements in the Planning System over the last couple of years thomas a we are starting to see our land bank uses good margin sizes going forward. We are seeing very good markets with a planning concern to start. Were seeing signs of improvement and there are still some difficulties in starting on commissionsplanning , which there is some new consultation by the government which we hope will speed things up in the future. Look, and these numbers you are achieving increased selling prices up by another 4 . Im rounding up here by 30 quid. Dor by 30 when you look at the supply side of the scenario, can we see omentum and prices to hold if we we go forward six months and 12 months. Are you concerned at all . We have seen steady pricing. We are comfortable with that. We are concentrating hard on building the houses, so we are looking at all sources of our supply chain so we can get the resources to build. In terms of selling price, we are very much aiming at right across market. With 64 under 200,000 pounds, is making sure we have affordable product that people can buy. The help to buy mortgages very good assistance for firsttime binders buyers. Onre are good Interest Rates help to buy startups at less than 3 . It makes a very affordable for people to buy. For never selling price of around 185,000 pounds, a purchaser will pay about a hundred 20 pounds a week to buy that house. Affordability is good. E have a good range of product can the market and house owners, especially the ones youre talking about, can they withstand an Interest Rate hike, which seems to be in the offing. Maybe not in the next few months but possibly in the next six. Interest rates are still very low. Clearly, in terms of the marketa in the mortgage review, there is a requirement for the lenders to stress test to make sure people can sustain arise on the Interest Rate. I think yes, certainly from what we understand in terms of what possible increases may be, i think it is sustainable in the mediumterm. Always good to talk to you, jeff. Live from the lsc. A set of numbers, full of doubledigit increases. He seems pretty optimistic. It ties in nicely with the conversation because we had breaking results from crh. Lets give you some of the topline numbers. Sales have increased by 4 . They are 7 in europe, up 1 and United States of america. Sales rise to eight. 3 billion euros 8. 3 billion euros. Firsthalf earnings 505 on the non. We have the ceo with us. Is the biggest cement company, crh. Albert manifold joins us now. These numbers, albert, are all doing quite nicely, a healthy position. You have a big review underway. What is your feeling for the first half of the year . A good start to the year was sales ahead by over 4 . I support the pleasing aspect of this business for the first half of the year. Increase just coming in slightly ahead of consensus. Good delivery in the first half. The outlook, it is a strong start to europe in terms of what weve seen. We have a lot of play here. A lot of data on our and from recession in italy. Obviously, we have the whole russian effect. I know the you speak with you people on the ground. What is the reality of what is happening on the ground in the last couple of months . On the ground, what were seeing from customers and contractors is a fairly steady solid progress during the course of the year. That seems to be maintained during the summer. We got off to a good start of the year on the back of good weather. The trends were seeing in may and june seem to be consistent through the summer. Looking at all the books in the most important months of september and a sober, they seem fairly solid. Sense ofu give us a what impact the Ukraine Russia you rightimpacting now, both dreck we and indirectly. We have operations in ukraine. Our operations in the western part of ukraine are far away from the problems in the eastern part. We have seen a strong start to the year. In the last couple of months we are starting to see the impact coming into our business. Indirectly it is a little more difficult to say. Theres concern about the impact of sanctions. Understood what the impact of sanctions may be. We will have to wait and see. Talk to me about the u. S. , because it is 53 of your sales. In may and june you saw improvements. Improved . Has that it has. Since may and june we have seen good momentum, promerit primarily led by the residential and nonresidential markets. That momentum continues to the very busy building season. It is good to see. That is great news. As a big piece of your business. Were are seeing congress agreed to extend the highways for want of convoluted words. Are you worried that there is not a bigger, longer term you . On for is a big risk for the business . You cant plan 12 months ahead, you need more than that. Supply materials to major contractors. You are right. Infrastructure is 50 in the United States. They kept a commitment up to fund their him infrastructure at similar levels. Commit, they also provide funding as well. Congress provided a further 11 billion of funding to take the commitment through may of next year. A portfolio reviewed 1. 5 billion2 billion underway. You are prepared to make more cost savings. 45 Million Euros so far this year. Losses . Targetb is 10 billion. Will we see more action from you in the back half of this year . Targets are 100 million. I merrily that will come through process relations. We are in a growth phase now and were focused on running a business more efficiently. With regards to the portfolio review we are coming to the end of that. Indicating 80 80 5 . Those businesses in tribute about 90 last year. 1. 5 billion in terms of the 2 billion during the course of next year. How does the whole merger it changed the landscape in your industry . It is a 37 billion merger. They are the top two by market cap. You are number three. As i leave you exposed . You always said, or your previous essar told us you want to remain independent. Is her need to make a big merger the others the world who are slightly smaller than you when it comes to the market cap . They are dedicated cement companies. We are a broadly spread Building Materials company. Our strategies for different. We are very satisfied. We have a Clear Strategy focused over the next couple years. Sense of where we are. We are in a recovery phase. This is a good place to be at this moment in time and construction. We focus on improving our business and how we add value to the building process. That is what will drive will you by some of the businesses if they have to divest . Those that tickle your fancy . We are focused on value creation. There are many opportunities, including some that you mentioned. Give me your sense of the ceos take on china. What do you think . Where are we in the china growth slowdown, the imf says dont charge up the economy too much. What does it take . Has really put his hand on the Steering Wheel firmly. Jinping has really put his hand firmly on the Steering Wheel. Theyre dealing with some issues which are not necessarily talked about but are important such as evo environmental association. Theyre making good progress. Heidelberg cement, Building Materials unit. What i do want to know is, we just had a discussion about your explosive growth in china. If some of these European Assets are not part of the thinking, what is part of your thinking . Emerging markets are part of a longterm strategy. Be quite bearish shortterm on the markets. There are some changes being made in india and china. And now in indonesia as well. They have to be worked through and the impact needs to be fully absorbed. It will be a drag in those economies. From our point of view we have good exposure. As we look to rebuild profitability, we look to rebuild back to a footprint of his assets that we have of assets that we have. Wouldve been the highlights . Firsthalf results have been delivered by a tremendous team of people. It is a good step. Are doubledigit returns achievable under your tenure in terms of march of margin and capital . It was clearly stated we will return to peak margins. Yes. Great to have you with us, albert. Seas asnty on the high merck announces a billiondollar buyback. That is next. Aersk announces a billiondollar buyback. To countdown. We have just had their earnings. Rom maersk caroline is with us to run through the numbers. Theyre doing a Share Buyback as well. This is a company that helps transport 15 of world containers. 15 of world trade. This is a company that continues to do rather well. ,inally, geopolitical tensions we saw the Second Quarter again profit more than double the previous year. Again, they raised their forecasts for the full year. They said profit is so well hell that we see in our line area, mers cutline, it is a container line business, the full year will be significantly above 2013. Before they thought it would be just slightly above. Now it will be significantly above what they made last year. They said container demand will continue to grow. They have better volumes and are transporting more. The rate per container is still under pressure. Theyre transporting more and managing to cut their own costs. The container line is doing so well that as a whole company, they are also raising the targets for 2014. About 4. 5 billion in terms of underlying profit. The firsthalf sales give us a perspective on how big this to me is. Billion, which is more than the gdp of cyprus. Any comments on this partnership . It will be a threeway partnership called the p three. China scuttle that. How is it to a partnership . They are on course. We have yet to hear from regulators. They havent been able to follow through. They wanted a threeway partnership. They wanted to be able to share that between the three key players. That was that his msc mediterranean and maersk and cma cgm. It is the number three player. China said theyre not too happy with this. You would dominate the market to such an extent you have almost half of all the transports from far east to europe. It is 185 ships. It is more than one third of the overall market. We would have to see whether they is that something that is a key determiner . Is still a driver . When that deal fell apart, we didnt see the stock collapse on the back of it, did we . I think it is because youre managing to manage your own costs. Theyre cutting costs internally and are able to raise their own rough forecast despite the fact that they have not yet struck the steel, but maybe in the future we will see even more efficiency coming. We will have a chat later with the chief executive. That will be on the move. Just after 8 00 or do not miss that. Minutes into futures. We are trading higher. We will talk about the big eight appoint several that the markets. Points that will hit the markets. Welcome back, im manus cranny. Lets do a quick check on some of the markets at 7 20 four. Russian markets are up and running. Trading just a new buyer. Nib higher. He Central Bank Moves from 79 rubles. The Russian Central Bank has to transfer 75 of the profit to the budget, the federal budget. That is up from 50 . That, another indication it is another contribution towards defending. If you want more evidence of the dissipation intention, geopolitical risk, that came is now the eighth game running which is along the stretch for year. That is quite a run for the my icex. We could have disinflation in the u. K. 1. 8 is a number we are looking for, done down from 1. 9 . A little bit later. 14 year high. Where barely 75 points away from the alltime close. Yearst hits, the next two will it presage the same decline . Coming up, the ecb will focus on that. It is taking over banking supervision. We speak to former boe deputy. Paul tucker. Welcome back. Time now for Foreign Exchange check. Justollar sterling was trading higher. You can hardly call it unchanged. We do have Consumer Price data today. That is expected to show a small dip. Little moreive a room to mark carney and the mpc in terms of delay. Barkley says get ready for a sixyear high. Its barclays will say you meet in november rate hike. This will trade back at one at 1. 71. Cpi data and the movements there. Look at the aussie dollar. We have the reserve bank of australia saying the nations Economic Outlook remained on uncertain. Significant uncertainties around growth forecast and the importance of considering the risks to the forecast. A little bit more of a skirmish in aussie dollar. These are the Bloomberg Top headlines. German chancellor could soon visit ukraine to talk with the key of government. The Chancellors Office declined to comment on a date after an early report that it would happen this weekend. Facingalso ruled out u. N. Troops to offset burress forces are battling militants for control of a key dam. He says the u. S. Is working to pull together an International Coalition to support humanitarian relief in northern iraq. Is also sending his attorney general to a missouri suburb to help calm a weeks worth of unrest. The testers and ferguson have clashed with the lease, throwing molotov cocktails after a white Police Officer shot and killed a black teenager who was unarmed. The governor called in federal. Oops to help now is a time for an open and transparent process to see that justice is done. Is ecb prepares to take over banking supervision in november, banking leaders have gathered to discuss the future of finance. Jonathan ferro is theyre having a conversation with them. Im at the salzburg global seminar. This one is a forum on finance and the future of banking. They bring together some pretty big names. Well be talking about the role of banking versus Capital Markets and the provision of credit. The question here was how do you wind down failed banks . High to clean up the mess left behind . Bloomberg news cut up with former bank of england Deputy Governor paul tucker. This is what he had to say yesterday. It will take some years to put a good resolution framework in place. Legislation is needed. Theres been done. The banks need to restructure and they need to issue bonds. The bondholders can take losses. The bondholders need to take losses without the depositors taking losses. This requires banks to be structured in the appropriate way. Not all banks are structured that way now. These are big questions. That is why we have this kind of thought leadership in places like salzburg. Another question to explore is how overwhelmed the bank is becoming. You have regulation from various geographies. Your stress test after stress test. Banksstracted are these becoming from doing the job we want them to do . Talk about allo of these big fines coming from the United States. What does this mean for the Business Models . I have some patent interviews coming to get answers for those questions. Chairman andsbc bundesbank board member. This is one of those really difficult assignments. Beautiful scenery here in beautiful salzburg. I can show you some of the pictures but i dont want to make you jealous. Were looking forward to those conversations throughout the day. Jonathan ferro over insults berg, austria. Were now joined by barclays head of european fx strategy. Is the jackson hole symposium key . Is it number one this week . It is definitely number one this week. It is pretty easy given that there is not a lot going on this week. It is an easy act to follow very eurozone pmi, china pmi. Nothing think chinas pmi will definitely be important. We are actually below the bloomberg consensus on this. We are looking for a 1. 7 year on year reading in the u. K. We are slightly above the consensus. On the u. S. Were looking for 2. 1 . In both those cases you will drag in different directions. Ultimately, we think that the sterling is going to find support from the broader Economic Data in the u. K. In terms of the growth numbers. I want to get back to jackson hole, but because of gone down this road, lets stick with it. Were going to crack on with rates. Wages will catch up. Where are we . What are you actually focused on . Is it wages . Is it inflation data . Where do you focus . I think you have to look at the whole picture. Ultimately, that is what the bank of england is doing. As a clear focus on wages because we have had extraordinarily strong growth and an output gap and the u. K. Close rapidly. And yet we havent seen this pressure and wages. Above that may be compositional, some of it may be in labor supply shock as the bank of england has suggested. Ultimately, what we keep coming back to is that they show an output gap that is slightly narrower now than it was in the may quarterly inflation report. Thereve also told us it is closing faster than it was. Going to get to appoint we are going to start seeing Wage Inflation heard one of the messages that Governor Carney was try to reemphasize to people was yes, wages are a problem and we are focused on it, but ultimately they are a lagging indicator. That is why we are calling for a hike in november. Friday,ckson hole this the scene of Janet Yellens labor speech is the market. I think the balance of risks is you should focus on president draghi and the ecb. He will be speaking after chairman yellen. The reason for that is, the fed has recently tried to deemphasize jackson hole as a policy message for him. Why is one of the reasons the former chair bernanke did not speak at it last year. Isis also the case that this going to be focused on labor markets. We know exactly where chairman yellen sits on this. She thinks labor markets are weaker than the headline numbers would let us leave. On the other hand, mario draghi has none of those constraints about whether this could be a policy meeting. He has a lot to potentially talk about in terms of the euro stalling out. He needs to do something rather than job on. T is his forte this is the conundrum that he faces. He runs a real risk of a does Say Something and does not have anything to follow it up. When you start seeing he is relying a break evens, in particular longterm form great break evens. Those have fallen below their mandated levels. Just a euro to declining . Were looking for a 1. 25 on a 12 month horizon. Ooking for a 1. 3 1 is at mean the dollar has finally found its footing . 3 since may. Is this the beginning of the dollar rally . I would say that we have started to see the dollar rallied against the european currency. If you want to look on a trade weighted basis, it began in 2011. It is been rising ever since. It has only been versus the euro and sterling that it hasnt. The thinking comes through on various levels. What is the funding currency of choice . Is the euro euro funding currency . The euro and swiss franc are the key funding currencies here. We haveuro area worsening data. Ashave a central bank that we just discussed may have to do more at some point. We dont know what that is. The key message here is that it will be lower for longer and perhaps more. What are you buying . The things we really like right now in the nearterm, we really like sterling a lot. Think it was oversold following the q i r. We think people took his message as being overly dovish. We really like the dollar. We continue to like that. We think the fed is on a path to hike rates. Thenything more exotic than pound . He wants to say you are prepared to buy the ruble. Anything exotic . Malaysian . T the is a great currency. Am i digging deep here . Theyre building a Stable Foundation in terms of growth is advancing. Control. Is well under theyre doing all the right policy measures to build a foundation for longer growth. Any world that is been long of kerry, where people have gotten over extended in many other emerging markets, this is one where we all think there is as much positioning builds up. That is an important point at this stage in the aes cycle. We have the ruble. It is the worst performing em currency out there so far. The ban yesterday. How do you look at those two currencies . Obviously, policy affects the ruble. The contagion from russia affects the zloty. The growth affects that we are seeing from russia and from the sanctions are clearly something that has changed that view. We have moved away from that. Russia itself is far too volatile. The riskadjusted return is not worth jumping into. He was honest. Discretion is the better part of valor. I remember that. Thanks, marvin. 7 42 in london. Still to come, brinkmanship at the border. Theyre the very latest on the attempts to end hostilities in Eastern Ukraine. Welcome back to count on. Some breaking news on bhp billiton. It is a divorce of some assets. 13. 4 billion dollars in line with what market estimators. Aluminum, nickel, silver and some coal assets, that is the breaking news. Theyre going to stick with their four pillars, so to speak, which is obviously iron ore as a core part of their business. This was flagged up last week. Php going for a spin off of a certain amount of assets. Theyre saying that in terms of buybacks, that is still one of the main priorities. Cash tol return axis shareholders in a most efficient way, whether that comes in the. Orm of the spinoffs we wait to see some of the details on that. Those are the details. Fighting continues in Eastern Ukraine with no sign of diplomatic talks. Tensions while rushers calling for a ceasefire. Theyre continuing to accuse russia of stoking the conflicts. Hans nichols joins us now from berlin. What is the latest . The latest is reports that angelo Angela Merkel may visit the ukraine later in the week. On the ground, Ukrainian Government officials in kiev are accusing the rebels of attacking a convoy with refugees, a civilian convoy. Clearly, the situation on the ground, it is fighting and it is tense. Yesterday, the Russian Foreign minister talked about the need for a ceasefire without preconditions. We ran that by the Ukrainian Foreign minister and he said clearly you need to have a ceasefire but you need to have a ceasefire that is respected by all sides and you need to stop the inflow of weapons from russia. It is about bilateral ceasefire. It is about real process minded. It is also about russian commitment to stop continuous inflow. And to stop shelling and supporting terrorist underground. Here in berlin theyre not confirming or denying reports that merkel would go to kiev, although theyre saying she is considering it and she is spoken by phone with president poroshenko. Round prospect of another of talks . What needs to happen is a four ministers need to go back to the president and get guidance for further consultation. That is what they came out with yesterday. Theres clearly an opportunity to continue talks, even if you buy the line that moderate progress was made, on the big issues during this five hours of talks on sunday night, they clearly didnt address them. They need to await further instructions from the heads of state. If there are any areas where they can continue talks, it is all was a possibility. It seems like a lot more movement has to happen among the heads of state. Ukrainians came close to calling for a head of state meeting between routine and poroshenko. President putin and president poroshenko. Youre looking at a live view of the city of london. It is 7 49 in london at the moment. Give a bright and beautiful dome. We will talk markets which are indicated higher at the moment. London up one quarter of 1 . At 6749. Stay with us. Back to countdown. We have just under eight minutes to the start of european trading. Some Big Companies and focus. It is container line maersk. That is where the real beat comes through. This is the bellwether of trade, the maersk line. Line unit, bute also for the Parent Company in general. For the Second Quarter in a row, profits have more than doubled. Thereve raised the forecast for the full year saying the profitability will be significantly above 2013. Apparently, developed markets are continuing to the buoyant. Economies will into new trending higher. That is what they say. We were meant to be worried about geopolitics and russian sanctions, murray worried about middle eastern conflict. The other driver in shipping now, arent they . Seconds back to the conversation we had with Albert Manifold which says he is a bull on emerging markets. The language of that ceo ties up with the language of that report in terms of the language of his report. Were still seeing strong exporting coming from the likes of china. Steaming up and down the transport routes between asia and europe. That is what will be holding these areas are strongly. This is a company that ensures freight rates. There rate is still the best. They added too much capacity during the financial crisis. Those numbers have been under pressure, but the costs are under good control. They have network efficiencies. There have improve their vessel utilization. This is a company that vastly overinvested during the financial crisis. You have to have a longterm view. They ordered three of these super triple e vessels. Of three ofpacity them, added to their capacity by to come byther 11 2015. These absolute juggernauts of the sea. How do they control that . To bee hoping by 2015 working in cahoots with the likes of their rival. Fifth two other rivals, dont they . , you cantid look control 50 of the market between the far east and europe. That is too much. Youre allowed to do vessel share with one of your competitors which is m s c mediterranean. Have 225t allowed to ships being shared amongst a lot of you. They thought it would control prices too much. 180 ships will be sharing. Capacityust managed more efficiently. Making sure theyre not got too many ships round out to see. They might not get through. They still have to get the regulators. They havent had any updates on that. We have had an update that overall, geopolitics have been put to one side. Developed markets are going great guns. Stay with us for an interview with the man himself. The ceo. On the move is next. Have a good day. Futures are up and with those his Caroline Hyde and with us is Caroline Hyde. Hans nichols is in berlin. Lets kick off with you. Bellwether and it is painting a buoyant picture. They are raising the profit forecast. Buybackounced a share and say that it will continue. I will dig deeper with the chief executive in a few minutes. We will send it out to john. Thank you. At the global seminars and the future of finance is the debate. I have some forecast for you. We will be talking to the incoming chief executive of the banking. We have some pretty big fines coming out. What does he think about it . Over to you. Merkel will travel to seek a solution to the crisis in the ukraine. Sundayks ended late on