Any moment. We are also watching pharma stocks. Results came in for astrazeneca and novartis. Novartis pretty much unchanged. Jon, we have this megamerger from rance. The french have also been quite antitech in the past. I wonder what they make of the facebook a lot of things, they are quite conservative about mergers. Some would say they are more socialist than china. If i am looking at facebook and apple, apple is the big surprise. Revenue, noflat growth in iphone sales. No one was looking for big numbers. Theyiver is not delivered not only on earnings. If you look at the share price in afterhours, up 7. 9 . Clearly a little bit of appetite for apple stock. What is next is the big question. They want to make sure they sell. You have the new logo for them. Thank you so much. Manus, you are at barclays. I am indeed. We are on the south bank of london outside the royal festival where the eccentrics will begin to turn up and protest a rather serious matter of bremen a ration. Profits at barclays dropped by over 30 . Jenkins raised the bonus pool. That is what is going to be voted on today. Three issues on rim and a ration. Francine. Thank you so much. We are also getting an opening call for alstom. Ge said to be in talks with alstom for a 13 billion deal. They say they note in they know nothing about it. Maybe the press have been checked out. Alstom gaining some 17 . In terms of market sentiment, what are we expecting . Quite higher. A little less concern about tech stocks. German Business Confidence, that is one to watch erie it elsewhere, i want to look at the open for you. This is your open in europe. The ftse up by 0. 4 . The dax up by 0. 6 . You see the rally across europe. German Business Confidence due later. That data drops in about an hour. It will matter for this one. Euro dollar around 1. 38. It is like a magnet for 1. 38. Euro strength is all anyone is talking about. Mario draghi speaks later. Elsewhere, look at kiwi. The new Zealand Dollar up by 0. 3 . This one keeps on moving. It is the bestperforming currency this year. The bank keeps on tightening. Investors expect more hikes down the line. Thank you so much, Jonathan Ferro with the latest. Joining us from our perspective is antilynch, Portfolio Manager who helps oversee krogers 1. 5 billion pounds of assets. What excites you the most . We have a little bit of everything. Yesterday we had china, today we have data from the eurozone. We also have these megamergers. We have tech stocks on the move. What do you feel is a great way for investors to take advantage of . If you look at mergers and tech stocks, it shows where sentiment at the corporate level is improving. Ge arent going to be looking to spend massive amounts of money on alstom unless they feel confident about the trends in the underlying economy. You buy when you can see the upside in Growth Potential going forward. If you look at the apple numbers, selling that many iphones, at the consumer level people are prepared to sign up either for a longterm contract or to pay out of pocket. Again, there is confidence of the consumer level. That is quite supportive of the market. And yet we see hardly any growth. Youre not concerned about deflation here . The fact that we are still not really adjusted to having less liquidity on the market. Think the growth tends to come later. You normally get an improvement in confidence as the green sheets come through. Then it starts following the hard Economic Data 6, 9 months later on. A decision by a company to invest, it takes some time. There is always a bit of a time lag. The strength of the euro is absolutely a concern. If you were a german exporter competing with Japanese Technology companies with a strongly weakening yen, that is going to be a headwind for you. Probably not in the current year because you have almost certainly hedged your currency exposure. Into 2015, that becomes a real problem for your profitability. Do Something Else to make your products more attractive. We will talk more about this possible french deal. Give me a glance of what you like. You like insurance stocks. I do. I think interestrate are going to be going higher from here over the neck few years. Particularlycks, Life Insurance are a great beneficiary of that. They pay 20, 30 years into the future. Those become worth less as Interest Rates grow up. I think that is a great play on economic normalization and finally stepping out from the crisis we have been suffering for the last five years. Thank you so much for now, antilynch stays with us. Here is what else is coming up on on the move. Alstom shares surged at a bloomberg exclusive. Ge could be prepared to drop 13 billion for the company. Alstom gaining some 17 . Mpy for barclays. A basketball legend shares the secret to his larger than life business deals. Stay with us. We are on the move and we are just getting started. Welcome back. I am Francine Lacqua in london. This is on the move streaming online, on your phone, apple tv and amazon fire tv. Here are two stocks that are on the move. Bloomberg has learned that ge is in talks to buy the French Company for as much as 13 billion. That would make it ges largest acquisition ever. According to people familiar with the talks a deal could be announced next week. Bouygues isay a major shareholder in alstom. You can see alstom gaining some 13 . Still with us is antilynch, Portfolio Manager. We were talking before about some of your top picks. You said you like industry groups. Talk to me about m a in france. This gets the press excited. We usually have some very colorful comments from the government. This is different because ge is such a big employer of french workers. You have got that matter, you also have the fact that bouygues is a big shareholder in alstom. Announcedl does get there will be support for the deal from someone who is influential in french politics. You can see that there is going to be a twoway pull on the fiscal side. From an economic and fundamental side this deal makes a lot of sense. Alstom has been struggling in recent years with difficulties on the cash flow side as their payments have been running down. Ge has got a huge quantity of cash. You put the two Balance Sheets together, solve that problem. Alstom has very good technology. You have a lot of synergy and so on. The deal makes sense. Is the price and off to get it over the line . Maybe not. If the valuation at first glance still looks relatively low, maybe ge will have to increase the bid a bit and everyone can say, we defended oust him, defended alstom. Megamergers,hese we should see them as a vote of confidence in the economy, the fact that things have settled is the crisis. Is it too dangerous for investors to take these companies that are not doing badly but have problems with cash flow so they might be an acquisition target . Alstom is getting 14 . It would have been a great that. The risk is that you can identify companies that might be taken over but you can end up waiting a very long time. I wouldnt recommend they go out and try to find the acquisition targets by themselves. What we look for is companies that are highquality successful businesses and we tend to find that other people like them as well and may cause offers to take them over. We dont go out and try to think, this is a business that could be a takeover target. This is a Good Business and if somebody else comes and agrees with us we can have a chat about the right price. You were talking about insurance. They are going, through a massive consolidation phase. Very similar with pharmaceuticals. Is it too dangerous to play that on the consolidation phase . To say, lets by a series of telcos or pharma stocks, you might end up being on the wrong side of it. You might end up owning the acquirer rather than the acquired company. If the acquirer and not overpaying which in a lot of cases they do, then you can end up losing value on your investment because the acquirer is lovely when it happens, it is exciting but it is a very risk leeway risky way to make money. Keep it right there. We will talk about tech next. Hotly anticipated earnings from facebook. Apple came in ahead of estimates. Jonathan ferro has a breakdown. Good news for the tech sector. A little bit of relief. Facebook really doing what apple is doing, delivering on what they do best. If you look at apple, iphone inc. 6 million more than people expected. Fears of flat revenue quickly forgotten. Profit up seven percent. Sales, theirt ipad second biggest seller, big his appointment. Down 16 . Apple execs put plenty of spin on the why but the bottom line is this is a product that is not the rotor ring is not delivering growth like it was. When do we get the next big product . Tim cook must be getting bored of this. His response was blunt yesterday. It means more to get it right than to the first. Concerns yesterday were perhaps overshadowed by apples other plans. Where to start . There is going to be what is called a seven to one stock split. In english if you have one share, you will have seven at the close of business. If apple is worth 501 a five dollars yesterday, each share would be worth 75. It does not alter the market cap. What it does do, there will be more shares available for a wider pool of investors. Will that drum up appetite to buy this stock . Let me tell you what tim cook things. He says it does not reflect the companys proper value. I dont think you will find a ceo that will say any different. The reaction last night, pretty clear, they are buying back into apple. Thank you so much. Lets get final thoughts with andy lynch. Two weeks ago, we talked about the pullback. We talked about a possible tech bubble. Now it seems to be on track. It still seems frothy for a lot of the stocks. I am not talking about apple, but maybe facebook, twitter. I think you are right. Apple, microsoft, lets call them the older, more established tech stocks. And the newer tech, facebook, twitter, the Cloud Computing names on the other side. The Old Tech Companies have prodigious cash flows, very good revenues. Tole, they can easily afford increase the dividend, start buying back shares. Without diluting their ability to grow, to innovate. For the newer economy stocks, there it is a bit harder. Facebook is profitable, but many of them are not profitable. Some of them are very much a Business Plan rather than a real revenuegenerating operation. There it is much harder to value them. If there is a bubble it will be in these ones where it is easy to tell a good story about how in five years time we are all going to be doing x. And put a value on that and apply it to lots of companies. You mentioned the iwatch. We dont know if it will sell. How difficult is it for you to predict the trends such as tablets that have revolutionized the way we live and work . It is extremely difficult. If you look back at the history , every time something ,ike that has been introduced people have generally underestimated the impact of it. Whether it was the phone or the ipad, what would i do with an ipad . Now we have one or two at home. Apple are very good at building something and opening end up to developers to put software on to that. That is what makes it so valuable to us. It is not the hardware itself, it is what all the other companies do with it. I the iwatch does come out, am sure they will have a whole load of developers lined up to do really Clever Software for that. Not a futurologist. I am sure when it comes out i will wish i had thought of that. I am in the same camp. Andy lynch. Coming up, barclays braces for a bumpy agm. Why this meeting may not be a walk in the park for the ceo. Welcome back to on the move. I am Francine Lacqua in london. Here are some companies on the move. General electric is said to be in talks to buy alstom for more than 13 billion. The acquisition would be the biggest purchase ever for ge. According to people familiar with the matter a deal may be announced next week. Posted thirdquarter sales that missed estimates. The government cracked down on lavish spending in china. Hadcompanys pricier brands previously been popular in the nation. Earlier this month, run record trial said earnings remi cointreau said earnings fell. Ceo mohammed al area says he explained why he left. When your daughter comes to you as my daughter did almost a year ago with a list of 22 things that you have missed as a parent, you realize there are the special moments in your childrens lives. I was missing too many of these special moments. It is that simple. That is a pretty touching thing to say. In centralday london, an event that has become quite a media spectacle. Cranny is outside the royal Festival Hall in london where the event is taking place. What can we expect today . The ceo will be under pressure. He is definitely going to be under pressure, Anthony Jenkins. Bringing down cost, getting hold of investment banking. One of the guests i will have barclays thatthat minimizes everything that is wrong about the bonus culture in britain. That is what Anthony Jenkins is up against. Accounts, boating through directors, etc. Saysnstitute of directors the bonus approved for last year is three times the amount that shareholders are getting. Cable route to the top 100 ceos in the u. K. Saying that high levels of pay are a dereliction of duty. Three votes will be put to the floor here today. Report from last year, profits jumped 30 , bonuses rose by 10 . They will probably pass. Subject, what does the city make of the issue and how the ceo is handling the situation . In terms of how he is handling the situation, this is he wase the voices saying, i am in a death spiral. I have people leaving my bank. Almost twice the rate i would normally see. Cds were flying out the door. People began to think the rainmakers were saying, i am not going to get remunerated. They were leaving in droves. That was jenkins in theory justification. Hold onto the talent, hope that revenues rise. I think the issue is this. You will get a little bit more meat on may 8. Did he set too ambitious a target . Was eight percent. His target was 11 . In terms of the percentage of remuneration, he said 35 . Does he need to change direction . We will find out today. Thank you so much. Manus cranny following barclay agm. Ing up, houston shares alstom shares rise. We look more at that story. Welcome back to on the move. I am Francine Lacqua. We are 30 minutes into the trading day. Lets see how things are shaping up. Overall we are having a pretty confident they so far. We had some encouraging news. Apple reporting earnings that beat estimates. Had some stock movers watch out for that mega merger with ge and alstom. That is a bloomberg exclusive. Ryan chilcote will bring us the latest on that. We will have that number from germany. Ryan chilcote is at the touch screen with a look at the three stocks we are watching. I will kick it off with alstom. The french maker of trains and power plants on fire. Why, that is because ge is said to be in talks to buy alstom for 13 billion, a 25 premium to yesterdays closing price. That is why you see the stock up just over 12. 5 . It has given up some of the gain since the open. Bouygues, they own 25 of alstom. They also are a telecoms company. Up about 4. 8 . Michelin indicating it is not all roses in france. Stock down almost 3. 7 . They just released quarterly sales. They were down in the First Quarter by about 3 on weakness in eastern europe. Not all roses in france, but it is one of those days when the French Market has got the attention of investors. Thank you so much, ryan. Ryan chilcote with the three top movers. These are the Bloomberg Top headlines. F has endorsed a 17 billion loan for ukraine. The loan will help ukraine pay down its debt. Will also clear the way for additional aid from the u. S. And eu. U. S. President barack obama is in japan meeting with the japanese Prime Minister shinzo abe. It is the first stop in his four nation asian tour which will place emphasis on the influence of china in the reason. All four countries have ongoing territorial disputes with china. Formula one president Bernie Ecclestone goes on trial today over allegations that he prayed paid a bribe. Judges have found that ecclestone made illegal payments to a former german bank officer. Ecclestone has run formula one since 1945. Another day, another deal. This time it is industrial. U. S. Engineering giant ge said to be eyeing frances alstom. Here with more, caroline hyde. Ge is paying quite a penny. On a five percent premium. 25 premium. Alstom has said, we havent heard of any approach of a deal. We understand that ge is eyeing up its smaller rival for 13 billion. That would be the biggest acquisition ever made by ge. Chief executive Jeffrey Immelt is trying to reverse a stock slump since he took over in 2001. Caution to the wind, going for a bigger deal. At 13 billion to snap up a company which really has serious engineering. It is all about locomotives, trains, power equipment. The timing is pretty apt. We are starting to see a turnaround in europe and in the United States. That are governments looking to start piling money into infrastructure. The timing looks good for alstom. Alstom hasnt really weathered the storm all that well. Crisis didnancial put a brake on infrastructure investment. Since then, this is a company saddled with a lot of debt. This year, they announced that 1300 jobs are to go. They are cutting costs, selling assets all trying to get a grip. Look at the share price over five years, down three percent. It might be time down 43 . It might be time to get a bigger brother. 89 billion, a lot of that a broad. They want to splurge in m a. It has been quite a week for m a in general. It was all about pharmaceuticals two days ago. Novartis saying it is going to be buying glaxosmithkline, the cancer division, for some 16 million. Now it is focusing on industrials. Look at the numbers, 55 increase in m a so far this year. 1. 2 trillion of deals. The United States is still the area for the targets. Europe is close second, about a quarter of all deals. Now, the question is, will the regulators approve . We understand that the french government has been approached. , thederstand that bouygues 29 owner of alstom shares has given a thumbs up. Caroline, thank you so much. Lets bring another voice into the conversation. William mackey is a Senior Analyst of capital and covers alstom. Great to have you on the program. How much of this is a french takeover story . We have been covering this for 10, 15 years. The french being taken over by a foreigner, usually we have the industry minister, the finance minister saying this is not possible. We have to be better at defending these things. We have to grow within france. Is this a similar situation . The biggest hurdle to this deal is going to be political resistance. Is the linchpin in this transaction. It appears to be supportive according to the report in the press. That is a very important factor. Also the consideration is that perhaps the political winds have changed. There are a number of other wellactions sfr as which open the door to perhaps more political leeway in a transaction like this. When you consider the economic benefits of putting ge alongside alstoms High Technology and Strong Industrial asset you can make a strong argument for expansion of the existing business alongside ge. Ges infrastructure business would support the growth of the transport activities. Their power business dovetails nicely with alstom. Ge bid for the transmission assets when they were sold in 2010. They are familiar with this type of transaction. There are so many jokes on twitter saying, why cant they because the trains dont run on time . They need cash as well. If we look back only a month or so, alstom share prices were languishing as one of the lowest in terms of valuation against the sector. The ceo and chairman has decided to pursue a strategy of not only increasing restructuring but looking to raise capital via asset disposals and a potential ipo of the transport business as an alternative to capital raising. This means it has opened the door for ge to opportunistically by a business which fit perfectly with their industrial strategy and existing portfolio. How much access does it give it to emerging markets . Alstom is quite present in some asian countries. Hashey buy alstom, alstom quite big operations in russia. Would they risk sanctions because of that . Alstoms strategy has been to pursue growth in emerging markets by leveraging its regions such as india, south america, china and russia. The russian impact would be marginal. They have a holding which is a domestically controlled business. That potentially has some political discussion to take place. In the long run, these businesses and the relationships with russia can be overcome. That is a shortterm issue with will pass. Strategically it makes sense. Now it depends on whether they have the support of bouygues. Absolutely. This is a very real approach. Ge are an extremely political animal. I am sure they have done enough crosschecking to feel sure that this discussion could advance even if it is in a luminary stage a preliminary stage. Alstompolitical staff is a business with 93,000 employees. 18,000 operate in france, most in transport. Those are at low risk. That is not a business which you move overseas. Ge has 11,000 workers in france. They are almost a French Company. Basically the company in france is almost french. I agree with you. Hit my understanding is that ge is well understood. It is understood by the politicians and employees. It has a good reputation. Moment, it is only just rumor bloomberg scooped, not only just rumor. Thank you so much for coming on. William mckinley talking about alstom. Still to come, he is larger than life on and off the basketball court. Tells us how he has built an empire after the nba. I am Francine Lacqua in london. This is on the move. The mna story of the day has to be alstom and ge. It has been a big week for deals in the pharma sector with a handful of exchanges between novartis and glaxo. Pharma is back in focus after novartis results came in line and astrazeneca missed. Joining us is the head of european pharma research. Great to have you on the program. First of all, we focus on the mna. How telling are these results . The earnings will be changed in the future as all these Companies Find their battleground. What we have seen in novartis this morning is strong results. Been a big issue and will continue to be a big issue. Pharma continues to be the main driver in novartis. That is somewhere they have strength. That is what we saw with the gs k deal. , the results were disappointing because they were investing for the future. We see investments in the new pipeline. And we have seen an investment in a new diabetes asset they have launched. I think for astra, the key is about how they can execute on the pipeline. Look at thewhen you share price, astrazeneca has gained 2. 5 . Earnings were lower but investors are focusing on the pipeline and the drugs they have that will be working. What is going to be the most revolutionary thing coming out of the pharma sector . Mna has beenhe done with the large caps. You are right to say they have been specialized and become more focused. That has been the theme for the last five years. Spinoffs,ts of which novartis did relatively recently. A lot of that has been done. They have been under pressure for the last few years to do this. At the are now seeing is midcap level, you saw the big bid by valiant. That is what we will see a lot more. Thank you so much for all of that. Naresh chouhan, head of european pharma research. Now the International Monetary fund staff has endorsed a 17 billion loan for ukraine. , russia warns that it will protect its citizens in ukraine. Ryan chilcote has all the details. Ukraines resumption of its push to dislodge those separatists from government buildings in 10 different cities, that is what prompted the russians to reiterate a threat that if russian citizens are attacked in the east of the country, they will take that as an attack against the Russian Federation and respond. It is entirely possible that there are russian said harrisons russian citizens in the east of the ukraine. We have president obama and Japan Holding talks with Prime Minister abe but also talking about russia, saying sanctions against russia are all keyed up and are days, not weeks away if russia fails to implement that geneva accord agreed on in switzerland on thursday of last week. Clearly, the situation is not looking particularly positive. Rex ryan, how close is ukraine to this real Financial Assistance . It looks like they are getting really close. We learned that the imf staff is recommending that the imf grant weaine the 17 billion loan have been hearing about for a couple months. The board meets next week and we expect them to get the money. The question is what they are going to do with it. We had the economy minister earlier this morning. He said they didnt know if they would use it to repay the russians for gas. That is an interesting one to watch. Ukraine clearly needs the money. Bond yield at a onemonth high on the back of geopolitical pressure. Russian bonds not much better. Russians had to cancel a bond sale yesterday. They dont really need the money but they like to tap the market from time to time. The russian market down today. Ryan, thank you so much. Ryan chilcote with the latest on ukraine. Is coming up at the top of the hour. We have some great stories. I think you have to look at this through a bigger lens. Fascinating, isnt it . Cast your mind back, finance minister of france nicolas sarkozy, he rescued alstom. 8. 4 billion euros was pumped into the business. Ge potentially paying 13 billion for the business. We will see if that pans out. They are known to be fairly interested in protectionism. He has the year of the Prime Minister and the president. We will get a take on where that story is going to go. Ge has a pretty big footprint in france as well. Stephen king is coming in from hsbc. I think we do need to talk to him about structural reform in europe. The resistance to foreign takeovers that we have seen recently. Look at what has been happening in the cement sector. French structural reform. We will address that. We will also talk about the death of money and why draghi is right. Some great guests coming up on the pulse. Cant wait. I am looking forward to that interview as well. Thank you. Here are some companies on the move in the meantime. Estimates as demand stabilized in europe and the company has performed in asia and latin america. Underlying sales rose 3. 6 but came in slower than that in the fourth quarter. The company has warned that sales growth would come in lower this quarter. Heineken poured out a firstquarter revenue beat with sales advancing 3. 4 . The brewer was helped by demand in africa and the americas. Heineken extechs strong 2014 sales. Faceys it continues to challenging conditions in russia. Jumpedof soda stream more than 10 in u. S. Trading on a report that starbucks is in talks to buy a stake in the company. Starbucks is trying to buy a 10 valued at company 1. 1 billion. Up next, shaqonomics. The basketball legend tells us how he has built an empire after the nba. He is one of the most successful athletes after retirement. We are talking about shaquille oneal. Here is a look at shaqonomics by the numbers. Youngsterved me as a was annuities. You cant mess with perfection but you can moisturize it. At 41 years old i have seen and tried almost every product. If i am not familiar with the product i wont endorse it. I started drinking arizona in college only because for 99 send you can get a lot. I thought it was a nobrainer. The macys line is just an affordable suitland. Big guys, we only have a couple places to go. I want to be able to go in there and buy something off the rack. This is every day. Every time i go to the mall. You have to have a shaq pack. The greatest leaders are the ones smart enough to hire someone smarter than them. I love frosted flakes. I would love to be on the cover of that serial. Wheatiesd only give me and i really hate wheaties. Invest in this box, this is going to be the next box. If you give me one million, i will give you 10 million. You have to say, ok, our box is still in or are we going green . Just tell a guy, invest. An education. For me, that was the best thing to do. I like that. He wants tiger to call him. Stay with bloomberg tv. Guy johnson and i are back with the pulse. We will be speaking to hsbcs chief economist, stephen king. A bloomberg exclusive. Alstom n talks to buy for 15 billion. Investors get set to grill Anthony Jenkins about bonuses and tax havens. Obamas trip to asia. He says the u. S. Has extra sanctions ready to use against russia. Were traveling with the president and well bring you the latest