Shares higher, as the ceo tells cnbc hes optimistic about the outcome of the French Election. The Worst Nightmare you can imagine is a second round where you have Marine Le Pen and jeanluc melenchon. Thats the worst case scenario. I still believe reason will prevail. Shares of man group moving higher after a 10 rise in funds under management in the First Quarter. Orders under pressure as large contracts remain elusive for abb, but the swiss industrial titan says it sees the first signals of stabilization in some markets. Good morning, everyone. Its thursday, youre watching street signs. We have another jampacked show for you. Lets look at the equity markets in europe. The stoxx 600 is close to the flat line, just inching higher to the tune of 0. 1 . Lets show you the markets one by one. A bit of underperformance in the german equity market, only off by six or seven points. The ftse 100 off fractionally. The cac 40 off by a half percent. Thats due to some of the earnings we got. Well get to that in a second. Looking at the sectors, Household Goods are outperforming, same as food and beverages, thats earnings related. We had updates from debenhams and publicis. I want to draw your attention to the fact that oil and gas are underperforming despite the fact we have seen a rebound in oil prices. Brent crude up by 0. 4 . Wti crude up by a half percent after the worst day in six weeks for these prices in yesterdays trading session as a result of that surprise build in gasoline inventories. Seeing more speculation about an extension of the production cut, thats boosting oil prices. It is a busy day when it comes to the corporate front. Lets get back to publicis, shares have hit a threemonth high after the french advertising groups First Quarter sales top expectations. Nancy is in paris. The company had issue with large orders or large accounts in the u. S. Is the outlook looking any better there . As you point out, a lot of the bad news around the accounts losses are old news as far as investors are concerned, thats why youre seeing the stock move higher. Analysts saying they there were hardly any new incremental negatives, and sales growth were better than expectations. That is helping optimism. I had a chance to speak to the ceo and asked him whether or not this would return to positive organic growth in the second half of the year. He is convinced theyre on a positive that jerajectory towar achieving more normalization in sales. When you look at north america, the sore point on the quarter, negative growth of 5 , that was far worse than the home market in europe. I did ask the ceo about north america, what the big drag was here and whether or not it was a lingering concern. Most of our issues are coming from the u. S. This is the mast problis the pat we call the media pollution. When it comes to the trump administration, you have a disconnect. You have on one hand euphoria in the markets, where everyone is happy and the market is going very high. While at the same time the growth, the underlying growth is still quite low. 2 growth in america, in the usa in the First Quarter is very low. So, people expect that the two fronts will join, well see growth picking up in the Second Quarter of the year. We are still expecting this. Regarding ourselves, we believe well have strong growth in the u. S. Starting in the Third Quarter of the year, and mostly in the beginning of 2018. The ceo of publicis saying he expects growth in the u. S. To pick up. But drawing an interesting distinction between some enthusiasm surrounding president trumps pro business reforms that he hopes to get in place and the disconnect between the actual growth. They expect that disconnect to narrow and that should support growth. You cant ignore the changing habits in u. S. Media buying. Thats why some analysts are holding out hope that the overall environment will improve in north america. Right here in europe, a bright spot, especially when you look at the organic sales growth in france. That may strike some as rather curious part of these results given the great uncertainty that hangs over french businesses as we get closer, just days now for the first round of the election. I had a chance to speak to maurice levy about those uncertainties and whether or not he was concerned that a French Election surprise when you look at the polls today could rock sentiment going forward. The situation in france is pair paradoxical. Normally in an election there is a wait and see situation where most advertisers are retaining a kind of retention of the investment, and there is a slowdown of all investment. For the time being we are in a strange situation where we see that ceos are confident despite the fact that we are vowed to enter an unknown world. There is for the first time four candidates which are in the same spot. Same ballpark. We dont know who will be the true winners for the second round. So, maurice levy there hitting on the great uncertainty that hangs over the French Elections. Despite that hes not seeing big advertisers clinch on to spending. Hes saying Business Confidence is resilient so far. But thats precisely why the results of this first round on sunday will be crucial. When you look at the polls, four candidates still very close when you look at the margin of error. Later i spoke to mr. Levy talking about the various scenarios. He pointed out clearly if you were to get a surprise in the form of a mr. Melenchon and Marine Le Pen making it to the final round that would be a nightmare scenario. But mr. Levy, like many business leaders, are optimistic that that will not prevail. Nancy, sterling work as always. Thank you very much for that. Speaking of sterling, lets look at what the pound is doing against the u. S. Dollar. We saw that big spike two days ago on the back of the unexpected announcement of the snap elections june 8th. James andrews is the head of Investment Management and joins us now. You said you thought that move in the pound sterling was counter intuitive. A lot of people thought the snap elections will lead to a softer brexit. You dont think so. Why is that . I guess im coming from a slightly different perspective in terms of were headquartered in leeds rather than london. There are a few more brexiters up there than here. And we have to look at manifesto. But clearly there are people who voted for brexit, theyre expecting a hard brexit. A stiff line on immigration, for example. Therefore can she really get away with softer brexit . Therefore is this actually just strengthening her hand in terms of and timeline more specifically so that when hard brexit potentially comes, shes free and clear for another two, three years before having to go to election again and the economy turns around. I guess im not as confident as the markets seem to be in terms of a soft brexit being done and dusted now, given how many voted for brexit, given the sentiment behind that brexit vote. Look, maybe youre right. Because were just sitting in our london bubble, youre outside that bubble. Maybe thats a good perspective. Do you think that this pendulum could actually swing for people to actually realize maybe this will be a harder than expected brexit post the snap elections and that would lead to selloff in the pound sterling . Quite possibly. Theres been a short squeeze here. People short sterling, any kind of potential softening, you will see people get out of that position. So obviously weve seen that quick rally in sterling. Yes, it does come down to whats in that manifesto. It will be interesting reading. Whether we get detail on immigration lines, on trade, potential trade, and really its the concessions that will be the talking points. Do you still want to be invested in the ftse given that its given up yeartodate gains . We know about this relationship between the ftse and the pound sterling. Is there a case for investing in it . Its a currency play in the shortterm. That makes me nervous. Id rather invest on fundamentals than on calling sterlings move, calling the political ramifications playing out. This could get a little messy if people dont feel like the mandate comes through. So sh so, long answer short answer i would be nervous of being overweight on the ftse 100 right now. We had a good run up, i guess i see better value elsewhere. How do you feel about french equities and european equities given this Political Risk . It seems like the first round of the French Elections is wide open with the potential of four candidates making it to the second round versus two previously. Do you feel that there is not enough volatility and enough uncertainty reflected in Market Pricing right now . Theres not been enough volatility for some time now in general terms. Certainly europe looks reasonable value. Fundamentals have been good. But theres a cloud hanging over europe with this Political Uncertainty. So seeing how that plays out, actually, you know we have binary events getting some conclusions to those binary events. All of a sudden we could get quite positive behind europe. Right now weve been nervous about europe and been underweight europe. That could change quite quickly. Were trying to position ourselves ready should we get the sort of more market positive reaction from the politics side. Therefore we can get back to those fundamentals which us investors would very much rather talk about, but this year it seems like politics are driving markets. James, thank you very much for that. James andrews. Lets get back to oil prices. Wti and brent cruise are rebounding after falling nearly 4 in wednesdays trade, the worst day in six weeks. The recovery has been aided by comments from asaudi Energy Minister who said a preliminary agreement has been reached to support output cuts. Hadley gamble spoke to suha Suhail Al Mazroui and asked him his thoughts. On an average i think its tough to go to 60, but on a given day, can we see 60 other above 60 . Yes, we can. We dont want to see shocks in the prices. We would like to see steady growth and correction. What is the right price . No one will tell you what is the right price. Were not concerned about the price. Were concerned as an industry about the level of price that is adequate. All of us benefited from this downturn, increasing efficiency, reducing operating costs, and its not only the Shale Oil Producers who have reduced costs. We have reduced costs significantly. Whats important is the net margin i think for most of the companies. And i am sure that going out of this cycle, we will be stronger as an industry. The imf expects nigeria to edge out of recession this year. The Fund Forecast africas biggest economy to grow by 0. 8 in 2017, thanks to increased Public Investment growth in agriculture and a rebound in oil output. Geoff spoke to nigerias finance minister and asked how grateful the government was to opec for helping the oil price recovery. Not sure grateful would be our sentiment at the moment when we very much are benefiting from the improved oil prices, went as low as 28. In the region its in at the moment it gives us ability to plan. We didnt need volatility. We need much more stability, which the opec deal has given us. The real impact is not price, its quantity. We had challenges in the Nigeria Delta which halved almost production. Production is getting back up so that is giving us more fiscal space. How critical then the opec deal gets extended for six months . I think theres general consensus that we need stability around the 60 mark. Im confident all the players involved know we need stability around price. 110 was great, 28 was not. Just some stability allows us from the finance and macro perspective to plan. So i think the oil minister, i know, is working very closely with his colleagues in the opec family to ensure that we attain stability. Thats the objective. What kind of planning are you making . It seems to me you have to have two sets of economic forecasts. One that is dependent on the opec deal being extended. One that says it is not and now we have to halve some projects. We put out a budget thats deficit financed. To supplement any short falls, we are borrowing. We are borrowing to Fund Infrastructure projects in nigeria, oil is only 10 of gdp. One thing were trying to correct is the over 90 of the economy, getting to contribute more to government revenues, thats aided by our ease of doing business. In the shortterm, we continue with implementing our plan, which is around improving infrastructure so that we can enable particularly the nonoil economy. As always, we love hearing from you. Do email the show. The address is streetsignseurope cnbc. Com. You can find us on twitter, streetsignseurope cnbc and tweet me at carolincnbc. We are going to go for a quick break. Coming up on the show, turin remains steady despite price hikes. We break down skys their Quarter Results after this short break. We are very busy when it comes to the reporting season. Man Group Reported a 10 rise in funds under management in the First Quarter totalling 88 88. 7 billion in the First Quarter. The firms longonly funds and its fund to funds business brought in the majority of the quarters new assets, and said a weaker dollar helped boost inflows as well. Shares up by 3. 4 . Unileave ser raiver is rais dividend as it attempts to defend itself from takeover attempts. They affirmed theyre on track to meet sales growth targets for 2017. Unilever is in the midst of a strategy overhaul after a failed takeover bid from kraft heinz. Nestle reported organic sales growth of 2. 3 in the First Quarter narrowly beating expectations. Sales 20weighed down by weaknes in china and negative pricing in western europe. Nestle confirmed fullyear growth targets saying it aims to grow underlying sales by 2 to 4 this year. Sky broadcaster said customer turnover was steady in the Third Quarter despite communication of a price increase. Earnings fell to just over 1 billion pounds due to a weaker Advertising Market and higher costs for football broadcasts. Sky signed a 2 250 million production deal with hbo. Want to talk more about skys results with Richard Hunter from wilson king Investment Management. Also joining is gemma acton who has been on the call of sky this morning. Richard, how reassuring is it that the turn rate at sky is stabilizing . Its one of the main things for analysts, they have been concerned over that and as has the net debt figure which improved slightly if we go back to the initial launch of the german and atoitalian units, theyre making their own contribution in terms of revenue and profits. Even though it is not just about the results today, the numbers that weve seen so far are pretty robust, strong set of numbers. Gemma what did you learn from the call . I guess a lot of talk about how challenging the uk market is now. What color did they provide . They mentioned the headwinds in terms of the consumer and how difficult it is to operate there. They mentioned inflation slowing down, Consumer Confidence weakening. They didnt refer to the jobs market which is fairly robust. The broader point was they are doing what they can. Whats nice about sky, they are always on the front foot trying to get ahead of difficult environments, ahead of consumer trends. So a lot of conversation led to the deal with hbo, which is worth a mention. What really hit the First Half Results in there were costs spiraling, and broadcast costs across the industry. The hbo deal is a way for sky to get on the front foot and control those costs and another source of revenue in terms of teaming up with someone they say is a strong provider of potential highquality dramas going forward. Thats the content. Lets talk about the revenue. Ad revenues usually fall in times of uncertainty. We have brexit and the uk general election. Richard, do you feel that sky is someone who would suffer as a result of this uncertainty or a flight to safety play . I think increasingly its more of a flight to safety play. I think its also reasonable to point out that it is such an innovative company. Quite apart from the investment in the business. You also had sky mobile, sky q, mysky recently, and now the hbo deal on top. So, without the distraction of the fox takeover, its clear that the operational evolution of the company is continuing at a pace. Do you think the fox deal will go through this time . Last time we heard all these concerns about the cma, the Competition Authority about media plurality. Do you think that will be addressed by the company sufficiently this time . Has to be. Well know by the 16th of may. Whats particularly interesting on this occasion is that in normal circumstances, when a bid is made and the bid here were talking about from fox is a 10. 75 pounds a share, you expect the share price to be close to that. As opposed to being one pound away. So there are clearly big question marks in the minds of investors as to whether the concerns over media plurality and influence will win out and the deal will be scuttled. Is that something that was discussed on the call . How much confidence was there . It wasnt discussed on the call. Its interesting to see if the deal does fall apart why. Are investors concerned over the regulatory inquiry the European Commission passed without problem whatsoever. The uk one will be trickier. Actually just the mer duurdoche themselves. The deal fell apart in 2011. The fox issues in the u. S. Right now with bill oreilly leaving yesterday, roger ailes leaving last year has a nasty reminiscent tone. So we wonder whether that will derail the deal at any point here. You dont think it would der