(BFW) Accor 4Q Rev. In Line With Ests., Raises 2013 Forecast

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BFW 01/16 16:45 Ahold 4Q Rev. In Line With Ests., Raises 2013 Ebit Forecast

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CORRECT: Accor 4Q Rev. In Line With Ests., Raises 2013 Forecast 2014-01-16 16:47:21.433 GMT

By Heather Burke Jan. 16 (Bloomberg) -- (Corrects co. name in headline) Accor 4Q total rev. EU1.40b, est. EU1.40b (median of 10). * Raises 2013 Ebit forecast to ~EU530m, had seen EU510m-EU530m (Bloomberg est. EU523.4m) * 4Q total LFL sales up 3.4%, est. up 3.8% (median of 8) * 4Q Upscale & Midscale hotels LFL sales up 3.3%, est. up 4% (median of 7) * 4Q Economy hotels LFL sales up 4.1%, est. up 4.1% (median of 7) * In 4Q had very robust demand in all key mkts, particularly in Europe * In emerging mkts demand remained very strong in Latin America, Africa-Middle East region * Asia-Pacific region was satisfactory overall, had lower business in China, in Australia Economy hotels remains under pressure * Call 6:30pm CET +44 (0)20 3367 9453 * Preview here * Next catalyst: 2013 earnings Feb. 20

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--Editor: James Ludden

To contact the reporter on this story: Heather Burke in London at +44-20-7673-2044 or hburke2@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story: James Ludden at +44-20-7673-2645 or jludden@bloomberg.net

(BFW) Telecom Italia To Set up Procedure for Eventual Brazil Deals

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Telecom Italia To Set up Procedure for Eventual Brazil Deals 2014-01-16 16:30:22.810 GMT

By Dan Liefgreen Jan. 16 (Bloomberg) -- Telecom Italia says no talks under way now regarding Brazilian assets. * Telecom Italia starts review of corp. governance * Telecom Italia forms working group to review corp governance and report back to board Feb. 6 * Board reviewed situation at TI Media today * Telecom Italia comments in statement * NOTE: Telecom Italia CEO Said to Back Curbing Telco Power on Board {NSN MZHPUW6K50XZ <go>}

Link to Company News:{TIT IM <Equity> CN <GO>} Link to Company News:{TEF SM <Equity> CN <GO>} Link to Company News:{TME IM <Equity> CN <GO>}

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To contact the editor responsible for this story: Dan Liefgreen at +39-02-8064-4204 or dliefgreen@bloomberg.net

>>> Tyson weighs $2 billion-plus deal for Michael Foods - sources

(Reuters) - Tyson Foods Inc (TSN.N) is exploring a bid for Michael Foods Group Inc, a deal that would combine one of the world's largest chicken processors with a large distributor of egg and dairy products, according to three people familiar with the matter.
A potential deal for Michael Foods, which is seen worth between $2 billion and $2.5 billion according to the people, would place Tyson, the nation's largest meat producer, into an adjacent category within poultry and protein.
Michael Foods, the egg and dairy products producer owned by Goldman Sachs Group Inc's (GS.N) private equity unit, is in the early stages of finding a buyer, and Tyson may ultimately choose not to move forward with an offer, the people cautioned.
Michael Foods is working with Goldman Sachs' investment banking unit and Bank of America Merrill Lynch (BAC.N) on a potential sale, Reuters reported in December.
The sources declined to be named because the matter is private. Tyson Foods and Michael Foods declined to comment. A Goldman Sachs spokeswoman did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Minnetonka, Minnesota-based Michael Foods produces and distributes products including specialty eggs, refrigerated potatoes, cheese and other dairy products.
Tyson Foods, which has a market cap of around $12 billion, has traditionally shunned large acquisitions. The last major acquisition it made was its 2001 purchase of IBP Inc for $3.2 billion, which helped transform the company into the world's largest meat producer and processor.
A tie-up between Tyson and Michael Foods would bring synergies on the poultry side of thebusiness as both companies raise chickens.
Goldman Sachs Capital Partners bought Michael Foods from private equity firm Thomas H. Lee Partners LP in 2010 for around $1.7 billion. Thomas H. Lee retained an ownership stake of about 20 percent as part of the transaction.
In the nine months ending September 28, Michael Foods posted adjusted earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA) of $188 million, up 7.2 percent from the same period last year.
For the full 2013 year, the company was on track to report EBITDA of around $250 million. Michael Foods is hoping to fetch roughly 9 or ten times that amount, according to the people familiar with the matter.

(BFW) *TELEKOM AUSTRIA SAYS AMERICAL MOVIL HOLDS 23.674% OF COMPANY

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BN 01/16 16:17 *AMERICA MOVIL ADDED 3.14% TO TELEKOM AUSTRIA STAKE BN 01/16 16:14 *TELEKOM AUSTRIA SAYS AMERICA MOVIL MAY RAISE STAKE TO 26.812% BN 01/16 16:13 *TELEKOM AUSTRIA SAYS AMERICA MOVIL MAY CROSS 25% THRESHOLD BN 01/16 16:11 *TELEKOM AUSTRIA SAYS AMERICAL MOVIL HOLDS 23.674% OF COMPANY

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*TELEKOM AUSTRIA SAYS AMERICAL MOVIL HOLDS 23.674% OF COMPANY 2014-01-16 16:20:38.967 GMT

--GAURAV PANCHAL

-0- Jan/16/2014 16:20 GMT

>>> Time Warner Cable Cox Communications said to be uninterested in formulating

Time Warner Cable Cox Communications said to be uninterested in formulating a competing offer for the company - financial press

**NOTE Jan 14th: TWC: Charter Communications CEO: "All options are open" in standing offer for Time Warner Cable - CNBC
***Reminder: On Jan 13th, Time Warner Cable's board unanimously rejected the 3rd proposal from Charter, which reportedly offered a bid of cash and stock valued around $132.50/shr ($83 in cash and $49.50 in stock), up from $127/shr in October and $114/shr in June. Time Warner's board informed Charter on Dec 27th that it would be open to deal at $160/shr consisting of $100 cash and $60 of Charter stock.

- Follow up: next day CNBC's Faber noted his sources have seen nothing to indicate Comcast would team up with Charter to bid for TWC.

(europe1) No merger between telecom operators

Google Translation : {http://bit.ly/19wT6Ko}
Europe1 in french :{http://bit.ly/1aa99yl}

No merger between telecom operators

The executive is excluded for now. SFR, Bouygues Telecom, Free or Numericable should therefore remain independent in 2014.
INFO - On the occasion of his vows to the press, the Minister for the Digital Economy Fleur Pellerin said Thursday that a merger between two telephone operators were not "on the agenda". While various scenarios involving a combination of SFR, Bouygues Telecom, Free Mobile or Numéricâble is discussed for several months, the government does not seem favorable.
"Who says duplicate says social destruction." The market for mobile operators as is now appears to satisfy the Minister attached to Arnaud Montebourg. "We now have a contract to four players, we want to work with these four actors under conditions that are conducive to investment and employment," said Fleur Pellerin during these vows. "A consolidation between two actors would necessarily mean a number of duplicates. Duplicate says Who says social destruction and it is not a prospect that would delight the government," she added.
SFR, Bouygues Telecom, an alliance pending. Last July, SFR and Bouygues Telecom have announced they are in discussions for a reconciliation at their facilities . Specifically, the two operators would use their antennas for better coverage of the territory. But Free entered the dance in November: citing unfair competition if the agreement was implemented, the fourth operator did not hesitate to describe this combination of "legally questionable". Since none of the three operators have indicated agreement.
Last November, on the occasion of the IPO Numericable, a marriage between cable operator and SFR had been mentioned by analysts and investors.

(RTR) 'True' euro zone stress test could show $1 trillion hole in banks - study

'True' euro zone stress test could show $1 trillion hole in banks - study {http://reut.rs/1mbc8cD}
BY LAURA NOONAN
(Reuters) - An objective stress test of the euro zone's biggestbanks could reveal a capital shortfall of more than 770 billion euros ($1 trillion) and trigger further public bailouts, a study by an advisor to the EU's financial risk watchdog and a Berlin academic has found.
The study and others published ahead of the EU stress tests, whose results are due in November, are important because they set the expectations against which markets will judge the credibility of the European Central Bank's attempt to prove itsbanks can withstand another crisis without taxpayer help.
If official figures are far below independent estimates, authorities will struggle to convince markets the tests are robust enough, particularly given two previous rounds of EU tests that failed to reassure markets of banks' health.
Banks have already raised over 500 billion euros from investors and taxpayers since the onset of the financial crisis, to bolster their balance sheets and help ward off a repeat of the 2008-09 financial crisis. But the sector is again on edge ahead of the stress tests, because of the risk that regulators will call for even greater buffers against another credit crunch.
The new study, by Viral Acharya, a New York University Professor and advisor to the European Systemic Risk Board (ESRB), and Sascha Steffen, of Berlin's European School of Management and Technology, was circulated to banks, think tanks and the ESRB in recent weeks.
In their paper, Acharya and Steffen said euro zone banks would need up to 767 billion euros to bring their capital to the level seen by the Bank of England's head of financial stability, Andrew Haldane, as needed for the banks to have withstood the last crisis.
The reference is to a 2012 speech where Haldane said the world's largest banks would have needed equity equal to 7 percent of their total assets to guard against failure in the financial crisis.
EVEN HIGHER
But the 767 billion euros figure only covers the 109 euro zone banks in the ECB's exercise who disclose detailed data about their finances, so the figure across the 128 banks being tested would be even higher.
Banks across the globe will have to meet a 3 percent ratio under the new Basel III regulation, but some national authorities are pushing for a higher threshold.
The European Central Bank (ECB) will complete its Comprehensive Assessment of the euro zone's 128 biggest banks by November 2014, in a bid to finally banish doubts about their balance sheets before Frankfurt becomes supervisor of banks including Deutsche Bank, Societe Generale (SOGN.PA) and Intesa Sanpaolo (ISP.MI).
The ECB's work will then feed into EU-wide stress tests on whether banks have enough set aside to weather future crises.
The authors' methodology is different from the EU and ECB tests, which interrogate the current financial positions of the banks and look at how much they would need to withstand specific future stresses, such as a fall in economic activity, a stock market crash or a global credit crunch.
"Balance sheets are not transparent enough for us to do what the ECB will do," Steffen told Reuters. But their independence could be an advantage.
"Objective capital shortfall estimates such as ours can provide a valuable defense mechanism against any ... political efforts to blunt the effectiveness of the proposed AQR (Asset Quality Review) and the intended recapitalisation of the euro area banking system," the paper said.
Acharya and Steffen, who singled out Belgium, Cyprus and France as countries whose banks could have significant shortfalls, along with Germany, also looked at how banks would be affected by a 40 percent fall in global stock markets over a six month period.
ADJUSTED FOR RISK
This analysis found the banks could need another 579 billion euros in a crisis to meet a 5.5 percent prudential capital ratio, a measure which adjusts for the riskiness of a bank's balance sheet and is marginally higher than the 5 percent used in the last EU tests in 2011.
A separate analysis assuming only that banks would have to write down non-performing loan portfolios suggested a capital shortfall of 232 billion euros, based on a "common equity Tier One" ratio of 8 percent, a benchmark of financial solvency.
The EU has not yet said what benchmark will be used, but reports this week said the ECB favoured a threshold of 6 percent.
That figure that would imply a lower capital requirement than the one assumed in the researchers' loan-loss forecasts.
The EU has agreed a 55 billion euros backstop to resolve failing banks, which will not be fully funded for another decade. The study said this would be insufficient to deal with fallout from the stress tests, as would other measures designed to ensure taxpayers aren't in the firing line once more.
"Our results suggest that with common equity issuance (e.g., through deep-discount rights issues) and haircuts on subordinated creditors (e.g, through bail-ins), it should be possible to deal with many banks' capital needs," they said.
"Some will, however, require public backstops, especially if bail-ins are difficult to implement without imposing losses on bondholders, who may themselves be other banks and systemically important financial institutions."

(BFW) HSBC May Have Overstated Assets by $92.3b, Forensic Asia Says

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HSBC May Have Overstated Assets by $92.3b, Forensic Asia Says 2014-01-16 15:14:58.97 GMT

By Howard Mustoe Jan. 16 (Bloomberg) -- HSBC may have overstated assets by $63.6b to $92.3b, according to a research note by analysts at Forensic Asia with a sell rating on the bank. * HSBC may need to raise between $58b and $111b of capital * “Questionable” balance sheet items include loan loss reserves, deferred tax assets, defined benefit pensions, level 3 assets: Forensic Asia * Dividend cut or suspension “quite plausible”: note * HSBC may face $10b of additional legal and regulatory penalties: Forensic Asia * A spokeswoman for HSBC in London declined to comment * The Telegraph reported the story earlier today

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To contact the reporter on this story: Jon Menon in London at +44-20-3525-3602 or jmenon1@bloomberg.net