This is what we are talking about for the next hour. Lets get straight to our top company stories. Holcim and lafarge have approved a merger that will create the worlds biggest cement maker. The new company will be led by the lafarge ceo. He tells us more about this major markets event. Manus cranny, you have been speaking to some insiders. What is their take . Their take is that lafarge is born down with debt. Holcim has some huge capital expenditure. They need to get together and get more efficient. They need to move together to actually improve the situation. My understanding is there are a couple of billionaires on the Stock Holdings of both companies. Both stocks reacting nicely today. In terms of market reaction, you have the egyptian billionaire on the lafarge a roster of holdings. Thomas schmidt hiding on holcims roster, they are the people. It is about improving the debt load for lafarge and the capital expenditure, the ability of holcim to commit on that. It is a game changer, my sources say. It is coming five years older earlier than perhaps some anticipated. This is bringing the cement injures industry up to shape. Will the deal face tough opposition globally . Regulators always get mixed up in these things. Holcim and lafarge are already under investigation for price fixing issues. You are looking at some colossal challenges. Mostly in europe. That is where we are hearing the overlap is. U. K. , they have over 40 of the cement market. Those are just two examples for you. In north america, you are looking at lafarge being the biggest supplier of Construction Material and holcim number two. Some big issues with regulators. This is where the danger of the deal comes. This is what is written in our story today. It could create a feeding frenzy. They have to sell between 10 15 to make these deals happen. The regulators are not going to be easy pushovers. Interesting. Lafarge, something we have seen quite regularly, a takeover in the last couple of quarters. Isi am very glad that holcim not called their old name. Andce made a mistake grouped them in a group of swiss banks. Guy johnson as a kid reporter. A long time ago. We have another french deal. Sfr, the deal is valued at 17 million euros. Lets bring in matt campbell. You guys talked about it this morning. Is it over . It looks like it is over. You always have to be cautious. Anything to do with vivendi has a way of dragging on. It would appear, for now, vivendi is going with its bid sfr withe to merge this company and create a quadruple play mobile powerhouse. That seems to be the way things are going. It always comes back in some shape or form. Is the view from the Telecoms Market in france . Everyone is thinking about the next deal. Buoygues,bid was from which would have become very strong had it succeeded in taking over as a far. Having failed to do so, they look vulnerable. Lots of analysts and other people who follow this market think that a tie up between bouygues and iliad is all but inevitable to bring the mobile 3,ket down from 4 players to which is something more stable. Bouygues, asm is, a family, is fairly wedded to their mobile business. How is that going to work . This is something that needs to be sorted out. You have the billionaire industrialist, a very passionate, aggressive guy who is not going to want to take a backseat. The question of control becomes very difficult. Lafargeholcim, this will be a battle of the billionaires. With the latest on the battle of the billionaires. Good alliteration on a monday morning. Lets turn to the biggest breakthrough in the monthlong mystery of the missing malaysian airliner. The plane, signals from what may be the black box of the aircraft. More details on this, randy joins us from kuala lumpur. How seriously is this being taken . The frequency seems to match up. Sure,cannot ascertain for but nonetheless, this is considered one of the most significant leads in the search efforts thus far. Malaysias joint Agency Coordination center confirms that there were pulsed signals over the weekend. Lses, to be exact. The first recorded for about 2. 5 hours in the second for about 13 minutes. They are believed to have come ,rom the two black boxes specifically the flight data recorder and the cockpit voice recorder. Why is this a breakthrough a significant breakthrough . This raises hope of finding the wreckage of the plane intact. Search efforts have passed the 30day mark already. Bywas initially believed experts that light boxes would stop emitting signals after 30 days because that is exactly how long battery life is supposed to last me to last. As such, because we passed the 30day mark, there is an urgency to act fast. The multinational search effort is hoping that the black boxes do still unit enough power emit enough power for additional vessels to come within the radius of the signals. Officials are asking that expectations are managed because there is no certainty that these signals are from mh370. Now it is basically a race against time. Battery life is about 30 days and we have been searching for this plane for a month now. Correct. As such, the Royal British navy vessel is making its way to the area where the Chinese Industrial vessel initially detected the signals from. Echo is equipped with more sophisticated technology, but nonetheless, their work is cut out for them because the waters where the signals were detected from can go as deep as 5000 meters. It is still a challenge nonetheless. We will leave it there. Thank you very much indeed. Germany is renowned for its manufacturing prowess. Our europe editor, david tweed, is getting a first look at technology trends. He joins us from the Worlds Largest industrial fair. Take it away. It is a massive fare. More than one million square meters of exhibition space here. ,here i am standing right now Angela Merkel is due here in just a few minutes. There is a jostle of cameramen and reporters here. The theme of the event is industrialization. It is automation. She is going to be looking at some of the latest automation processes on offer from germany and will be exported all around the world. Last night, she opened the event with the dutch Prime Minister. She says one of the key things she wants to see happening is a kickstart of the transatlantic trade agreement talks, which are absolutely vital. She says she wants to see this transatlantic freetrade grouping of 800 Million People opening up. Forsays that will be vital the competitiveness of europe, not just germany. She is still talking about the importance of putting sanctions into place against russia if we see any further violation of the ukraines sovereignty. She will be coming in here in just a few minutes. I will be back later in the hour khoff,k to the owner of be a company with a turnover of about. 5 billion euros. Thank you very much. We will have wendy more on this plenty more on this fascinating talk about when robots are going to replace us. Will not be as much fun. They can never be as much fun. Lets hope not. What else are we watching this morning . Hundreds of demonstrators seized official buildings in ukraine. Our testers have called for a boycott of the president ial elections and a referendum instead. Blamings government is russia for stoking the unrest. Nigerias economy has overtaken south africa as the largest on the continent. Position the largest after overhauling gdp data for the first time in two decades. We are live later with the details. Buying ranbaxy labs. They expect 250 million in by the third year after completion of the deal. It is the biggest by an Indian Company in two years. India at ap, crossroads. We bring you up to speed on an election that will shape the fate of a country for decades to come. 800 Million People are expected to vote. Good morning, everybody. Welcome back. You are watching the pulse. India starts going to the polls today in the biggest democratic exercise in history. With a population of 1. 2 billion, indias selections are set to last for five whole weeks. Ryan chilcote looks at the staggering numbers. Worlds largest democracy and this is the Worlds Largest election. 815 million voters, more than every man, woman, and child in all of north america and europe. They will be casting their ballots in nine rounds of voting over the next five weeks at 8 million polling stations equipped with almost 2 million electronic voting machines. Their job is to choose more than 500 lawmakers and the party that will run the worlds 10th largest economy. Countrywins rules a that is home to almost 1 5 of the worlds people. Anxious about an economy in its asst shape in a decade prices rise by 10 a year. India is a colossal country and a colossal challenge. Certainly is a challenge. 850 million voters. Ryan joins us with the latest. Leadingmore about the candidates and the economy that they will be inheriting. It is effectively a two horse race between Narendra Modi and his nationalist can do party on the one side. On the other, rahul gandhi and the ruling Secular Congress party. Modi and his mr. Party have the upper hand. They are the front runners according to the polls. Not that they would get an absolute majority in parliament, but it does look as if they are poised to get enough of the votes over the next five weeks to form a stable coalition that they would lead. That could mean real change. If you look at indian politics now, the current Prime Minister has been in power for 10 years. The gandhi dynasty has been in since 1947. Or less, the Congress Partys current candidate is the son and grandson of the preceding Prime Ministers. Seen as the candidate for change that indians would like to see. You have the economy issue, inflation, already, corruption. 10. 2 can point to where he has been a leader and say that the economy there has been better than most of india. The indian electorate wants change and they want a better economy. Through the investment perspective, particularly from an international, corporate point of view. This is a big market and there are huge challenges. For sure. Space,look at the retail one of the big issues over the last three or four years is when is india going to let Foreign Investors operate . Inside global retailers of the indian space. You have company like tesco, the biggest in the u. K. For supermarkets. It tiptoed into the market last year. Together with the tata family. Problem is, not everywhere was willing to accept Foreign Investment or majority control by foreign retailers. Modi, his party had a press conference and they say they see that policy continuing through for the whole nation. They are ready for all of india to be open to Foreign Investment in the retail space. There is an extraordinary amount of promise in the supermarket space in terms of the market size. Runnernd even the front appeared to be reluctant to let it through quickly. Ryan chilcote with the latest on what these elections mean not only for people who want to do business with india, but for the Indian Economy. Lets get more on the indian elections. We want to know what the next election means for business. Lets ask the chairman and ceo of rational fx. It strikes me that indians are being put in a difficult position. They have the incumbent party for which we know what has been going on. The corruption story, the lack of progress economically. On the other hand, we have modi, where we have serious concerns about religious strife and difficulties between the hindus and the muslims. It is a difficult choice. It is. Powerngress has been in for 10 years now and their agenda is slightly different from the agenda in the future. Congress is a party founded on the socialist grounds. Their main emphasis is on financial inclusion. Things they brought in the parliament, for example, the security bill, and they have put relations in place so that banks in the Agricultural Sector as well. It is more about financial inclusion. Modibjp, the image of mr. Has been very business friendly. He supports big businesses but at the same time protects the smaller businesses by not allowing multibrand retail Foreign Investment. How much will we be able to overhaul. India has been one of the biggest perfect disappointment over the last decade. Big potential and we have not had the Structural Reforms needed. Is he the right person for the job . Only time will tell. It looks like indian hopes are high at the moment. He has cut down the bureaucracy. He has been successful in attracting Foreign Investment. It has been one of the most peaceful states of the last 10 years. He has been accused, in the past, of creating differences. In the last 10 years, he has been one of the most peaceful states. So your view is the Indian Economy will benefit . To put it simply, that the risks outweigh the opportunities, the risk of religious strife should be put on the back burner for the economy as a whole. I think so. That is the beauty of democracy. Nobody should be in power for too long. Change is good. Past, we have seen the Rightwing Party moved towards the center. This is very interesting. I think that would make a difference. It is about time india has some so that there is an opportunity for the Congress Party during introspect and change their policies. Thank you so much for coming on today. See how social media is being used to get objects, quite literally, off the ground. Welcome back. Lets check on the european markets. Manus cranny is that the touchscreen. Equity markets are having a tough start to the day and to the week. European equity markets coming back from the 2008 highs. Technology is where you are seeing some of the biggest moves. That is the Industry Group that is coming down. Weg debate is this have had a lot of Consumer Technology stories in the marketplace. What is happening to the enterprise stories . Technology coming lower. Bank of japan our meeting. European central bankers have been on the tape as well. We will get to that in a moment. Lets have a look at the deals that are in the mix today. It is all about cement. Olson doing a deal with lafarge. Doing a deal with lafarge. A merger of equals. Crh in the middle. What will the deal mean for them . U. S. Equity futures also lower at the moment. It down maybe. 5 . Down. 25 . Novotny has you, been talking about his preferences, the austrian central banker. He is essentially saying that his preference is for Asset Backed Securities in the quantitative easing debate. Get that you cannot thing down, can you . Try as they might, they might need to try harder. Thank you. Coming up, we have been talking about how robots may replace you in the factories of the future. Toyota is turning back the clock to get ahead in the future. Why they are replacing machines with people. Yes, you heard me correctly. The craftsman is making a comeback in the car factory. Welcome back. We are live from bloomberg tossed European Headquarters in london. These are the top headlines. The big breakthrough in the missing jet. There may be the black box of flight 370. The battery on the black boxes have a 30 day life. Of prokremlin demonstrators. There is a boycott of the president ial election. Nigerians economy. They overhauled the gdp data. Interview waiting on the nigerian death story. Rapid and over five percent. Now, we than 10 years have predicted this. It benefits the bottom 40 of the population. We are joined now. Can we definitely trust these revised numbers . Is great to be with you. It is an exciting time in nigeria. They beat all expectations. Some of the key facts that came involved the significant change. There is a strong diversification of the economy. There is a rise of services. A telecommunication merge on one of the largest confidence. Talk about the implications and theca, as a whole relationship between south africa, for instance, and pushed full this has the 26th ranked economy in the world. That we overtook south it is not about becoming the largest economy on the continent. They plan to use this. Thank you so much for that. Lets continue the and find out more about how companies can cash in. Marketsan emerging strategist to joins us now. This sounds like good news. A difficult story we are focusing on. Nigeria has many problems and we are hearing about some of them. Doesnt change much . Is it a typical headline . , it isome extent expected. Is wasnitude of the gdp was a surprise to some extent. Is very low and the revised figures are around two percent. I am looking at electricity production, for example. , i think they are more important for investment going forward. We have a highprofile investor. We are now looking at investing in africa. That is already the case. To some extent. Yes. The companies will look at nigeria. Doesnt change much . The stock exchanges close to 77 billion. So, it is largely under. If i am a businessman and i want to do business in africa, it is hard to do business in africa. Corporate governance comes out and you need some of the infrastructure. Business in run a africa, there is so much that needs to happen. Do you think it will change the nature of the relationship of africa in the country . Not necessarily. , itn terms of transporting is much more. Week 510 years away from this . We have so many hopes. There are amazing resources. Is tough to get in because of visa problems. See nigeriagoing to and africa as able . There are stories of integration in the region. Is much better than it was. Nigeria has a and, despite all the bottlenecks, there are International Companies that have done well in this part of the world. The potential is much bigger. The potential is much rigor. Thank you so much for that. We are going to get you some company news. Posting 19 billion now theyiscal year and have production line machines and real people. Traditional human skills. We are joined from tokyo. How can you be more . Roductive and efficient it is interesting what is going on at toyota. We just mentioned that they expect to have assembly and vehicles. A company that is in a position that is continuing to grow and is holding himself back , from the perspective of, to gross, by capping at new capacity. Within the existing plans, itota and japan have put back into manual labor and they have the motivation of finding ways to improve the machines that shrink the lines that they cars. Make they are succeeding in doing one and we saw this particular line that we looked at that was reduced in size through the project that toyota is working on. I guess they have a big impact. Are they doing the same thing . It is unique within the automotive industry. You do not see this going on. Toyota has been willing around the scene. Others have not been able to replicate it. And otherhasizes it carmakers have not emphasized it or replicated the Production System for decades now. Thank you so much. Right. Lets move on. We will stay in japan. Using objects float ultrasound. Tom gibson has a report. Levitation is a trick made famous by david blaine. It is happening for real. Usingent behind it is not magnets. He is using sound. Midair acoustic manipulation. What is special about it is that by altering the frequency, the student is able to move the object in air. Of the soundt wave, you can control them precisely. As components in Electronics Gets smaller every day, the team sees it. Can move heavy objects around. He chose social media. The video on youtube had 3 million clicks. Before, it was difficult to get the attention of the public and you can only present your work at academic conferences. Now, you self publish. As well as breaking new tom gibson, bloomberg. That is genuinely incredible. You do not get to see that often delivered to the market in the way that they have decided to do it. It is amazing that it may be the way to go. We are going to take a break. Largest industrial . We are getting a firsthand look at the trend. David . Whats you are right. Industrial. Biggest 250,000ibits and visitors. Andll stick with the owner we will discuss the factory of righte and how to here with the chancellor. We will be back after the break. Welcome back. You are watching the polls. We are live from the london had orders. Once lets go back. They are presenting their wares at the half of the german output. David tweed joins us with the factories of the future. I certainly am. I have a really quick essential example of a company. It was founded in 1980 and it is in automotive company. A visit from Angela Merkel. Congratulations. Yes. You showed her an automated system. What did she ask you about . She wanted a sense of what we were doing. We are doing automotive technology. And industry. Is automation. It is more than just automating factories. Thinking of a new quality of i. T. Technologies and delivers a good foundation. It is interesting that you say that. One of the big concerns is that the jobs will be replaced by automation. The automation will pursue this . Transformation a from lower jobs to higher level. Obs and automation people a lot of new jobs will be created for the worker. Abouthave been talking toyota today and some jobs going back to manual. Is that something that is happening . We have a specialized product doing this with products. Outside of the european market, your biggest market is china. Can you tell me how the business is in china . Very good. We have a Good Development of thea and we are delivering machine builders. China andsident of germany had a special message that we thought was interesting with regard to the economy. That is right. The chinese president talked about the future growth sector that is officially announced at 7. 0 and it will not get lower or much higher. China is interested in economic development. There are a lot of business possibilities. This has happened. Everything is better. Oftell me about your sense what is going on with the german economy. Economists are expecting this. There is the future and you supplying thes industry for the rest of the world. The income is climbing and all the products are connected and have to be produced with the technology. Im sure that the next 15 years will have a good market. In a certain sense, we have to deliver new principles of production that renew Energy Consumption and reduce profits and it will be difficult. Thank you very much. , obviously, germany is out in front with automation and automation all around the world stop back to you guys in the studio. Interesting. Factories are improving the way that they make things and they make them faster. Yeah. Watch out for your job. And the ingredients found in counterfeit bills. Have you seen any . We will break down the black market when we get back. Good morning. You are watching the polls. If you ever thought about watch may make youstory think again. Olivia takes a look at the black market for counterfeit pills and what they are the Drug Trafficking you do not hear about. Billion sold globally each year. These makeshift labs, it is some of the ingredients in pills online that are sold to customers around the world and it is a problem so big that Companies Like pfizer are policing themselves. Scientists are doing the legwork and the evidence gathered here will be gathered. Is a winning formula and the incentive is to protect the brand. Today, they are training me to spot the real deal. It is hard to tell. We find everything from fake chapstick to the king of counterfeiting is viagra. Can you tell which is real . Here is how it works. The first step is to document the sample. The second step is the physical exam. The third step is the chemical analysis. Is fundamentally different. Then, file the report. We handed over to brian. We average one a week and we have lawenforcement doing it on training that we do. It is important that our patients know that it is our product. We have gone through the process to make it safe and effective. Lacks the black market is growing at a clip and it is no wonder that the police need outside help to keep up. Fantastic. Was like i think about it. I think about it. Chapstick was one of them. Forget about everything else. The trademark retailers, right . Do you know whether they are for our viewers, it is the second hour. Cementing the recovery. European Business Leaders and a livery of megamergers. Ships for the malaysian jet and the flight data recorder. Will robots steal your job . Good morning to our viewers in europe. A verwa