International Headlines and Stories

The French Finance Ministry responded late, but with great detail, the controversy launched by MEP in Europe Ecology Canfin Pascal, on the bonuses of bankers and traders French.In Libération, 7 May, he thought the amounts paid by banks not complying with EU rules.

The MEP said that France would not accurately transposed the directive on variable compensation, which would allow certain bankers, including Baudouin Prot (Chief Executive Officer of BNP Paribas) and Frederic Oudéa (CEO of Societe Generale) to receive bonus of several million euros, four to five times larger than their fixed salaries, under the year 2010.

"It's unfair to single out France!" Says it does at Bercy, where we recall that the decree implementing the EU directive was sent to Brussels in March 2011, without comment, to To date, the European Commission, while "warnings" have yet been sent to 12 Member States in March …

Variable part, fixed part

G20 first to denounce the perverse bonuses, France is presented as a model student for the application of new rules on the matter. To demonstrate that the volume of bonuses paid in 2011 for the year 2010 is declining, Bercy dotted with numbers: the ratio of net income bonus on the Corporate and Investment Banking (CIB) would be increased from 125% 2007 to 100% in 2009 and 30% in 2010.According to references of the two great Parisian institutions BNP and Societe Generale, the average bonus would have decreased from 303 000 in 2009 to 290 000 euros in 2010 and 231 000 in 2009 to 198 000 euros in 2010.

Moreover, the share of bonuses in total compensation would have increased by over 75% in 2009 to 60% in 2010. An average does not represent the variable portion of 62% of the remuneration of Baudouin Prot in 2010 and 73% of that of Frederick Oudéa."In the spirit of French and European legislation, it was a 50/50 balance the ratio between the fixed and variable pay," recalls in Paris say, "there is that the European Parliament who wanted the 50/50, but that would inevitably lead to a wage explosion … "

Finally, Bercy said that more than 60% of the bonuses awarded in 2010 were deferred for three years at least, and that banks resort more to guaranteed bonuses over several years.

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The Japanese government thought about it and he did. The operator of the plant in Fukushima Tepco come under his control. The Japanese government has indeed released Friday details of a financial rescue plan to help compensate victims of the nuclear accident that hit Japan on March 11. "The purpose of this plan is not to bail Tepco, said Friday the Japanese Minister of Economy, but to ensure that victims are properly compensated." The operator will be under the supervision of an independent commission to strengthen the de facto government's influence on the conduct of its affairs.The government project, hotly debated within the team of the Prime Minister's center-left, Naoto Kan, has yet to be voted by Parliament.

Between 26 and 43 billion euros in compensation for victims

This plan includes the creation of a structure financed by both state funds and contributions from various private power companies in Japan. This entity will help Tepco through grants of bonds (5,000 billion yen by the Japanese press) convertible into cash, to compensate the estimated 85,000 victims of the nuclear disaster. Japanese media say that the operator should have to pay from 3000 to 5000 billion yen in total (26 to 43 billion euros).Tepco should also pay annually between 100 and 200 billion yen this structure (from 870 million to 1.74 billion euros), according to Japanese news agency Jiji.

The government even asked the banks that have lent 1.4 trillion yen (11.7 billion euros) to Tepco to waive a portion of their claims vis-à-vis the operator. "People do not understand that public funds are injected into Tepco if banks did not give their side a portion of their claims vis-à-vis the operator of the nuclear power plant in Fukushima," says Government spokesman Yukio Edano payday loans online.

TEPCO will have to sell financial assets and properties

Anxious not to appear to give a blank check to the company criticized for his role in the nuclear incident, the government also demanded that she undergo Tepco a number of conditions. The company will mainly sell financial assets and properties in order to concentrate its resources on the production and distribution of electricity.In addition, the eight most senior executives of the company will also waive any compensation and personnel managers to ordinary workers, will also undergo substantial pay cuts.

In addition to the huge amount of compensation, TEPCO will have to pay an extra bill to increase hydrocarbon production in thermal power stations, eleven of its nuclear reactors have been arrested since the disaster, counting those in the central hilly.Group CEO believes that these additional imports of gas, oil and coal would cost him 1,000 billion yen (8.7 billion euros) over budget during the year to April 2011 to March 2012.

Bank stocks fall at the Tokyo Stock Exchange

Result of this announcement, bank shares fell sharply on the Stock Exchange on Friday: Sumitomo Mitsui Financial Group sells at the close of the Tokyo Stock Exchange 3.80% to 2452 yen, Mizuho Financial Group, 2.98% to 130 yen and Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group 2.79% to 383 yen.Due to the collapse of the market capitalization of Tepco stock market that has lost more than 80% between March 10 and April 7 last, Sumitomo Mitsui Financial Group (SMFG) could announce a loss of about 80 billion yen ( 696 million euros), Mizuho Financial Group, 50 billion yen (435 million), and Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group (MUFG), 30 billion yen (261 million).

The sessions are followed and do not resemble the Asian stock markets. After all generally closed higher Wednesday, they slipped into the red on Thursday, hurt by the sharp drop on Wall Street last night. Like the U.S. stock markets, Asian financial markets are affected by falling oil prices. A trend that seems to reverse this Thursday in electronic trading in Asia, oil starting again significantly higher to 99.50 dollars (1.31%).

Japan: current accounts slashed by the earthquake

Anyway, this revival does not seem to reassure investors, oil prices have not passed the symbolic 100 dollars, according to some analysts. The Nikkei 225 closed sharply down from 1.50% to 9716.65 points. In the oil sector, Inpex shows a sharp decline of 3.42% to 564,000 yen.

After publishing yesterday's annual and quarterly results, and reassuring comments on its outlook for production, Toyota leapt 3.05% to 3370 yen and Nissan, which has published, after market, net income increased more than seven takes 1 , 40% to 795 yen.

On the macroeconomic front, the country saw its current account surplus dropped 34.3% in March year on year to 1.679 billion yen (14.6 billion euros), due to the earthquake of 11 March, which has disrupted production and exports.

The Taiwan Stock Exchange is resistant to red wave

In China, the Hang Seng in Hong Kong coward 0.83% to 23,098.80 points. Aluminum Corp. of China sells 2.42% to 6.86 Hong Kong dollars, CNOOC, 1.82% to 18.28 Hong Kong dollars and China Coal Energy, 2.95% to 9.86 Hong Kong dollars.As for the CSI 300 in Shanghai, it was down 0.17% at 3139.71 points.

Other financial centers in the Asian region, one resists Exchange: Taiwan, including Taiwan TAIEX gained 0.33% to 9050.50 points. Conversely, the KRX 100 Index dropped 1.48% from Seoul to 4558 points, the S & P / ASX 200 in Sydney fell sharply from 1.28% to 4718.80 points, the FTSE Straits Times sells 0.70 % to 3154.96 points and the BSE Sensex 30 Bombay lost 0.29% to 18,531.50 points.

With the advent of smart phones, the Internet began to transform into mobinaute. The shoppers follow the same path, after an initial study on m-commerce ", conducted among more than 3,000 Internet users and sixty e-retailers. While more than one in two French has already made a purchase online (52.1%), according to the Federation e-commerce and distance selling (Fevad), only 12% of them were from their mobile, or 3 million people in total.

"The profile of m-buyer of 2011 resembles the profile of online shoppers in 2001: he is younger and more male shoppers than the average", describes Gilles White, research director at TLC Benchmark. As with the first purchases on the Internet, purchases by mobile applications currently focus on simple products, low and controlled amounts of known sites.Cultural products (DVDs, books, video games, etc..) And travel (train tickets, rentals, hotels …) are the most purchased by mobile phone. The garment sector rises on the third step of the podium by mobile sales, while it took until 2005 that the industry is growing really on the Internet. "The event model based on private sales of consumer responsiveness explains this very good performance. The e-mailings and alerts on mobile now read more than promote Internet impulse buying, "says research director of CCM Benchmark.

Click on the thumbnail to enlarge the graphic.

Some heavy

Vente-privee.com is a striking example. Launched in June 2010, the mobile application for iPhone and iPad drains already 7% of group turnover. The launch of the Android version this week should further stimulate sales my credit score."This channel is about 0.5% more revenue per month," explains co-founder Xavier Court. He said he is not totally incremental sales: "It is difficult to estimate the share alternative is that this new method of shopping," he adds.

Gilles Blanc emphasizes the heterogeneity of performance: "For some leading sites of e-commerce, m-commerce weighs only 1% of their turnover." This is the case of La Redoute: this channel, available for a year, represents 1% of sales, while the group attracted about one in six internet. "A few sites already carry nearly 10% of their sales through this new channel," says study author. The average is more around 1% of the market for e-commerce, which was 8.8 billion in the first quarter 2011 (+20% in one year) according Fevad.Among the good performers are SNCF, the first online travel agency (546 000 visitors per day), and Accor, which has sold 100,000 room nights through this channel last year and the group plans to multiply this number by 2.6 this year.

While the first application was launched three years ago in France by Amazon – second most visited Internet site, after eBay – 2011 should be the year of launch. An e-retailer in four offers a mobile version. For many players, this is a site that should be completed this year to be ready before the planned deployment of 4G next year.

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The restructuring announced by giant ThyssenKrupp has obviously taken over the political authorities in Germany. Christian Wulff, German Federal President, showed his annoyance by canceling his visit was to perform Sunday at the site of the new steel giant group in Brazil.

This production unit, located next to Rio de Janeiro is very important for ThyssenKrupp. It cost more than EUR 5 billion, making it the largest investment in its history. In addition, the visit must be conducted by Heinrich Hiesinger, the chairman of ThyssenKrupp. The refusal of Christian Wulff is a setback for the German group.

It is true that the political authorities, which are historically very close to the leaders of the steelmaker, may be concerned by the magnitude of the restructuring announced on Friday morning.ThyssenKrupp will sell or restructure almost a quarter of its turnover, more than 10 billion euros of business. 35,000 jobs are concerned, a little over 177,000 for the whole group.

Diversified industrial group

It's not about job cuts outright, but transfers or outsourcing. Nevertheless, all these activities are not profitable and negative consequences on employment in the future are possible. In addition, ThyssenKrupp executives have said for months that they wanted to improve their credit ratings by agencies. A will rarely compatible with social concerns guaranteed online payday loans.

The announced restructuring will not profoundly change the profile of ThyssenKrupp, which appears more like a diversified industrial group than as a pure steelmaker. In this activity, it occupies today as the twentieth largest in the world.But it is also present in the elevators, with a position of world number three, shipbuilding, automotive and construction of turnkey plants.

The new group's strategy is not to focus solely on the business of steelmaker. The announced measures do in fact only two activities: steel industry and automotive equipment. In this division, three companies, which together 2.2 billion euros in billings, will be transferred while two others, also posting 2.2 billion euros of turnover, will be met, before being eventually sold or find a partner.

The most important movement, however, concerns the branch "stainless steel", that ThyssenKrupp will transform into an independent company. This activity is the leading European, with a turnover of 5.9 billion euros.During the year ended last Sept. 30, it lost 57 million euros. Of the 35,000 people affected by restructuring the steel industry alone employs 11,000 employees. This activity is likely to be observed carefully by German politicians, because the area is known to concentrate in the coming months.

Photo credits: TF1-CHEVALIN/SIPA/TF1

The Governing Council of the European Central Bank moves Thursday in Helsinki, according to a well-established ritual of holding its twice yearly conclave off the walls. A deliberate manner to meet the "true European". If market economists are virtually unanimous in excluding any change in interest rates on Thursday they expect the president of the ECB provides specific guidance, at its monthly press conference on the strategy it intends to .

He speaks of "extreme vigilance" on inflation, "would signal a rate hike in June," Jonathan Loynes believes, the chief economist of Capital Economics. Jean-Claude Trichet had used the term encoded on March 3. The markets had immediately concluded that the ECB would raise the following month's rate remained unchanged at 1% since May 2009.The promise was actually held on April 7, despite the disasters that had struck the meantime Japan.

A new security crackdown in June is not the assumption of the majority of experts. They recall that during the two previous phases of monetary tightening experienced since its inception in January 1999, the ECB waited three months before continuing its march forward. However, there is no doubt that central bankers in Frankfurt will launch a second strike in the summer, probably in July. "If Trichet had expressed its" extreme vigilance "on March 3, he had risen to 2.3% while its inflation projections for 2011. But the consumer price already showing an increase of 2.8% over the last twelve months and now we are heading towards a figure of 3% over the year.The ECB will have no mood to continue the cylce of rising interest rates, analysis Bruno Cavalier, an economist at Oddo Securities.

Besides the issue of interest rates, Jean-Claude Trichet, speaking on behalf of 23 members of the Governing Council will be asked about the pursuit of so-called "unconventional" monetary policy and purchases of securities State set up in pain May 9, 2010. "President Trichet will continue to indicate without any doubt that the program continues. But since there were no purchases during the past four weeks, it is clear that the ECB is increasingly reluctant to maintain such measures in place when it hardens its conventional political " according to Capital Economics.

The ECB president is sure to renew his opposition to any restructuring of the Greek debt, including the ECB holds a substantial share."Of the 75 billion euro government securities bought, more than half of the paper focuses on Greek, whose market price is currently trading at 57% of their face value (of the 10-year bonds), calculates Bruno Cavalier. This shows the potential magnitude of losses to the ECB about these operations, although its purchases have been made at prices already discounted.

From 1 August 2011, the parking fine will increase to 17 euros. This is stipulated in a government decree that will appear shortly.

Today, a motorist who does not pay parking fine pay a flat rate of only 11 euros. Either the same amount as in 1986 (75 francs). For years, local officials demanded an increase of the fine, arguing that it was no longer a deterrent cash advance. So they finally succeed.

Indeed, Baroin, the budget minister, had announced in February that the parking fine be raised from 11 to 17 euros. But the date of application was not known. This is now done. According to the costings of Bercy, the increase of the fine report 24 to 36 million euros per year to local authorities.

Back to normal view for luxury in Japan after the earthquake of 11 March. This is the forecast that are several French captains of this industry in Japan. While LVMH has announced a decline in sales of 9% in the first quarter, and even 25% on the month of March but the improvement is already noticeable. "Activity in our 58 stores is almost back to normal. Sales to daily are the same or even higher than those recorded last year. We lost the moment the customer of Chinese tourists, but it will come back, "said Yves Carcelle. The CEO of Louis Vuitton came last week to comfort his team from Sendai store, near the epicenter of the quake, which just reopened its doors. Bernard Arnault, CEO of LVMH, would go to turn in a few weeks.

Same story with Chanel."I gave my team early in the crisis time to turn around, put their family's safety. Today, they are very dynamic. Sales are surprisingly quite good in perfumes and beauty, excellent in fine jewelry and watches, and gradually resume mode, but it takes a little longer. The best way to respond to the earthquake is to resume activities as normally as possible, what we do, "said Richard Collasse, President of Chanel Japan.

Boom in marriages

They said the stores – whose sales have dropped 15% in March – irritated against the big brands who decided by mutual agreement to close a few days their "corners" at home in the middle of the crisis. Today, the page appears rotated. "Department stores have more need than the other French brands.It is we who generate the traffic, "the representative slides of a mark in the archipelago.

Beyond the earthquake and tsunami, the Japanese market trends toward a settlement will parallel the aging population. A study by Deutsche Bank, the Japanese consume a quarter of global luxury goods market. Japan still remains the largest market for Louis Vuitton (18% of its turnover, according to our sources), while the Chinese are the first customer in the world. "Luxury in Japan has long enjoyed a very favorable position, thanks to the strong yen. Today, the Japanese market is normalizing, affects older people, with sophisticated tastes.Consumers are more individualistic, as shown by the success of our offer personalized, "says Yves Carcelle.

More surprising factor and optimism: the explosion of the market for jewelry related to engagement and marriage for a month in Japan, observed by all brands in the industry. It comes in a parallel boom in marriages. "People want to live," says a French boss of the industry.

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