WSJ Blog : 5 Charts That Explain India’s Luxury Market

{http://blogs.wsj.com/briefly/2015/08/28/5-charts-that-explain-indias-luxury-market/

5 Charts That Explain India’s Luxury Market
International luxury brands have long desired to reach the portion of India’s rich dispersed across the country’s smaller industrial cities.
But these customers are wary of shopping online, preferring to see products before buying.
So, to reach India’s new millionaire households–at least 44% of whom reside in second and third-tier cities, a Kotak Wealth Management report shows–these companies rely on trunk shows.
These charts explain India’s luxury market.

  • 1-The number of millionaires is rising

    The number of millionaire Indian households worth 250 million rupees ($3.8 million) grew by 17% from 2014 to 2015. That figure is expected to more than triple to 348,000 households over the next five years with a combined net worth of 415 trillion rupees, according to Kotak Wealth Management.

  • 2-Spending on luxury goods is growing
    Luxury-goods sales in India grew 25% in 2014, compared with 7% in China, according to research firm Euromonitor.
    A bag is 8% to 10% more expensive in India than in Europe or the U.S. due to import duties and luxury tax. Indians prefer shopping abroad, say analysts, and are familiar with luxury brands’ latest lines.
    As a result, luxury firms in India offer the same collection to their clients in Patna as they would in Paris. “The awareness is such that a client would say, ‘Why are you selling me old stock?’ They’d go ballistic,” says Soumya Jain, co-editor of “The Luxury Market in India: Maharajas to Masses.”

  • 3-That spending is expected to continue to rise
    Over the next five years, spending in the Indian luxury market is expected to more than double to 236 billion rupees from 132 billion rupees, according to Euromonitor.
    “The consumption story for India is starting now and will continue for the next 10 to 20 years,” says Luisa Munaretto, co-founder of private equity firm IndEU Capital. “There is strong interest.”
    And the wealthy in India are spread out. Some 44% of India’s millionaires now live in emerging towns and cities, according to a Kotak Wealth Management report.

  • 4-There’s an increasing appetite for luxury goods
    International luxury brands command only a tiny share of the Indian market, where they face strong competition from local fashion designers and jewelry makers. Indians prefer traditional dress and jewelry but shoes, bags and watches from global brands are a hit. Indians are also developing a taste for high-end skin care, expensive luggage and fine wine.

  • 5-But Indians don’t want to shop online
    Luxury buyers’ preference for bricks-and-mortar stores in India is partly driven by their desire to “touch and feel” goods before they make a purchase and a fear that goods bought online could be fake. A customer’s preference to buy in-store is likely to continue over the next five years, according to Shreyansh Kocheri, an analyst with data provider Euromonitor.

WSJ : India Embraces Luxury as China Turns Cool

India Embraces Luxury as China Turns Cool
Makers of expensive items like handbags, shoes target new patches of wealth outside megacities


As sales growth slows in China, luxury-goods brands are now focusing on India to tap the rising number of millionaires who are indulging in conspicuous consumption. Photo: Junho Kim for the Wall Street Journal.

AHMEDABAD, India—At a fashion boutique in one of India’s industrial boomtowns, the wives of factory owners and textile exporters sipped tea and mulled spending hundreds of dollars on a handbag covered in thousands of gold-colored crystals.
Shalini Garg, whose husband is a property developer, plopped down $2,000 for a clutch with an inlaid chevron design. She said she likes to have a fancy bag when she makes an entrance at parties. “I usually hold it for an hour and send it back to the car,” she said, noting that it was rather heavy.
As sales growth slows in China and other big markets, luxury-goods makers are increasingly looking to cash in on patches of new wealth sprouting in often-unexpected parts of India, where there is a growing appetite for luxury brands.

    Most of the smaller cities where the wealthy are located are also where key industries have taken root. Ahmedabad hosts textile, pharmaceutical and chemical factories.
    The hunt for these customers is sending big name brands into India’s heartland, as they seek to sell handbags, high heels and other glamorous goods in India’s second- and third-tier cities, which may have populations in the millions, but where you are unlikely to find a Starbucks or a Gap—much less a Manolo Blahnik boutique.
    “There is a growing demand for luxury products because people want to look better, feel better,” said Sanjay Kapoor, managing director of Genesis Luxury Fashion Pvt. Ltd., a company that sells luxury brands such as Canali, Furla, Burberry and Jimmy Choo in India. Indians are “more aware of trends now.” There is no taboo in India on leather goods despite prohibitions in some states on consumption of beef.
    An increasing number of the people in this creamy layer—at least 44%—of the economy are from outside its megacities, according to a Kotak Wealth Management report.
    Knowing “where the rich live…that’s critical,” said Genesis’s Mr. Kapoor.

    The number of millionaire Indian households worth 250 million rupees ($3.8 million) grew by 17% from 2014 to 2015. That figure is expected to more than triple to 348,000 households over the next five years, with a combined net worth of 415 trillion rupees, according to the Kotak report. They make up less than 1% of a population where 20% of people make less than $2 a day, and the majority make $10 a day, according to a study by Pew Research Center.
    In Ahmedabad, about 500 miles southwest of Delhi in India’s Gujarat state, the Judith Leiber brand, with bags costing thousands of dollars that are coveted from Tokyo to New York, held a two-day sale in July in a small fashion boutique that mostly stocks Indian designers’ wares.
    A shop assistant showed off a series of clutches, including one shaped like a pyramid and others in the form a camel and a rose, resting them on his hip and turning them slowly so their crystal beadwork would catch the light.
    Such forays are becoming increasingly common. Purses from Valentino, watches from Etienne Aigner and shoes from Christian Louboutin have all appeared in pop-up shops everywhere from Indore in Madhya Pradesh to Nagpur in Maharashtra.
    Most designers follow the trunk-show model because the wealthy prefer to shop discreetly and it is less intimidating for some first-time wealthy shoppers if the brands arrive at their doorstep, without the need for any travel to big-city boutiques.
    There are obstacles to setting up luxury stores that sell these brands in second-tier cities. Some sellers say the malls there aren’t nice enough. Import duties and luxury taxes levied on high-end goods drive Indians to shop abroad, analysts say.
    Judith Leiber, which has stores in Delhi and Mumbai, estimates that close to one third of its sales in India come from trunk shows, said Varsha Ahuja, the company’s brand manager in India.
    India’s luxury market is set to more than double to $5.6 billion by 2019, research firm Euromonitor predicts. That is still small compared with the $23 billion sold in China last year. But it is growing rapidly.
    Luxury sales in India rose 25% in 2014 from a year earlier, compared with 7% in China, Euromonitor said.
    Shoes, watches and bags are a hit with wealthy Indian consumers. But other kinds of luxury goods are a harder sell. Many Indians prefer traditional dress to Western clothing. Indian jewelry, too, follows local traditions instead of international tastes.

    Indian socialites’ spending habits are increasingly similar to their counterparts in Europe or the U.S. Indian women, young and old, enjoy Judith Leiber bags because they pair well with formal Indian dress that tends to be brightly colored and extravagantly embroidered.
    Judith Leiber’s trunk shows in India were modeled after American fashion designer Bill Blass’s afternoon-tea shows for high-society ladies in Texas in the 1980s, saidSangeeta Assomull, chief executive officer of Marigold Luxury Brands Pvt. Ltd., the Indian retail company that sells Judith Leiber in India.
    In Ahmedabad, Judith Leiber relied on Avani Bhansali, the daughter of a well-to-do cotton-factory owner whose boutique stocks top Indian designers in one of Ahmedabad’s more upscale neighborhoods. She knows the city’s A list and can scare up a crowd of local socialites with one WhatsApp blast.
    At the Judith Leiber event in July, many of the customers were trying to get their hands on one of 10 clutches that had been made for early launch in India. The price tag for the gold, rose-shaped minaudière: $4,995.
    Mrs. Garg said she didn’t realize she had so much competition for the bag in her city: “I thought no one spends in Ahmedabad,” she said. “But clearly they do.” Before buying her chevron clutch, however, she asked for a discount—and got 10% off.
    Pooja Agarwal stepped into the Bhansali shop where the trunk show was held, carrying a blue Prada tote. She used to pick up all her bags on trips abroad but is happy to shop closer to home. Her friends and neighbors are much more brand-conscious than they used to be, she said. “Before people here dressed simply—not drably, but now they are more label-conscious,” she said. “They know about both Indian and international brands.”
    Ms. Bhansali’s latest trunk show at her shop was this month, when she stocked labels such as Jimmy Choo and Paul Smith. “There is a lot of money here, a lot of demand,” in Ahmedabad, Ms. Bhansali said. “But not enough supply.”

    WSJ : Hacker Killed by Drone Was Islamic State’s ‘Secret Weapon’

    Hacker Killed by Drone Was Islamic State’s ‘Secret Weapon’
    Targeting of Islamic State’s electronics expert shows how digital warfare has upset balance of power on modern battlefield

    The pro-Islamic State hacking group IS Hacking Division defaced a website and used it to leak the alleged personal information of U.S. military and government personnel. On Aug. 11, the group’s Twitter account posted a link to a mirror of a defaced website where the information was posted. The link was then retweeted multiple times by Junaid Hussein on his Twitter user name.
    U.S. and British officials decided earlier this year that a hacker needed to die.
    Junaid Hussain, a British citizen in his early 20s, had risen fast to become a chief in Islamic State’s electronic army. One person familiar with the matter said he hacked dozens of U.S. military personnel and published personal and financial details online, including those of a general, for others to exploit.
    He helped sharpen the terror group’s defense against Western surveillance and built hacking tools to penetrate computer systems, said people familiar with the matter.
    Mr. Hussain was killed by a U.S. drone strike on Tuesday while he was in a car in Raqqa, Syria, U.S. officials said. That he was targeted directly shows the extent to which digital warfare has upset the balance of power on the modern battlefield.

    Islamic State didn’t build a large cyber force like the U.S.’s National Security Agency or China’s People’s Liberation Army. Instead, it had people like Mr. Hussain, a convicted hacker whose suite of inexpensive digital tools threatened to wreak havoc on even the world’s most-powerful country. Islamic State communications described him as one of the group’s secret weapons, said one person who has seen them.
    U.S. officials said they believe Mr. Hussain played an important role in recruiting two American Muslims to open fire in Garland, Texas, this spring on a contest for cartoon depictions of the Prophet Muhammad. He also frequently hacked into U.S. service members’ Facebook accounts to determine personal details and future targets, one of the people familiar with the probe said.
    “If you don’t have anybody who is kind of fluent in computer operations, you’ve got a problem,” said Michael Sulmeyer, a former cyberpolicy expert for the Pentagon now at the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government. “The ballgame is pretty much the coder or the individual.”
    Mr. Hussain drew attention from U.S. and British intelligence and military agencies in part because of his efforts to recruit and incite violence, said one U.S. official. His importance to Islamic State made him a legitimate target, the official said. “Leadership: That is what gets our attention.”

    Islamic State hasn’t confirmed Mr. Hussain’s death, as it sometimes does after operatives are killed in drone strikes. Eulogies from Islamic State supporters, including one man who like Mr. Hussain grew up in the West Midlands city of Birmingham, England, began trickling through Twitter on Thursday.
    In the 14 months since Islamic State announced it had formed a caliphate, the group has carved out a state of sorts in Iraq and Syria. Since last fall, when U.S. officials began tracking Mr. Hussain, the terror network also started to strengthen its cyberwarfare capabilities, adopting cutting-edge encryption technology and boosting its attempts to recruit hackers to even the odds against major Western powers.
    Mr. Hussain grew up a book-smart teenager, according to court records and several people familiar with his case. He was planning to study computer science.
    Before graduating from high school, however, he joined a group of British teens in a hacking collective called Team Poison. Using the handle “Tr1ck,” Mr. Hussain claimed responsibility for hacking into the email account of an assistant to former Prime Minister Tony Blair. Mr. Blair’s personal details, including his National ID number, the equivalent of a Social Security number, were published online.
    A British court found Mr. Hussain guilty and he served a prison sentence.
    Birmingham police in July 2013 arrested him for involvement in a street fight. While awaiting trial, he fled to Syria, U.K. officials said. By January 2014, he was communicating online with other British Muslims about how to join Islamic State, according to court documents.
    Once living in Islamic State territory, Mr. Hussain re-emerged with a new online persona: Abu Hussain al-Britaini.
    U.S. officials began to view Mr. Hussain as a top threat because he was on the leading edge of Islamic State efforts to recruit in the U.S. He would post names, addresses and photos of U.S. troops on his Twitter feed and suggest followers find and kill the person. In several instances, the Federal Bureau of Investigation and Defense Department set up 24-hour watches around targeted service members, a person familiar with the situation said.
    Mr. Hussain developed a hacking tool, or malware, that could be used to spy on other machines, called a remote access Trojan, or RAT. He was training other Islamic State members in how to use hacker techniques, people familiar with the case said.
    In at least one interaction, according to a Wall Street Journal review of online communications, he discussed the possibility of obtaining a zero-day exploit—hacker jargon for software that takes advantage of flaws in commercial software, such as Microsoft Word, unknown to that developer. Because they are unknown, they are almost impossible to stop.
    Islamic State leaders have long communicated on a variety of platforms such as Facebook Inc. that U.S. officials can easily tap through court orders. Computer-security types such as Mr. Hussain, however, are notorious for being cautious with digital communications. After Mr. Hussain moved into a leadership role in the group’s so-called hacking division, Islamic State began ordering and teaching its commanders and followers to tighten its security awareness.
    In December, Islamic State issued an order banning fighters from using devices equipped with location-tracking software, particularlyApple Inc. devices. By May, members were tweeting to throw out Samsung Galaxy smartphones as well.
    This year, Islamic State officials started warning against using WhatsApp, the popular messaging app owned by Facebook, for fears it was being monitored. Officials said operatives should use one of several Western encrypted or hard-to-track messaging apps, such as Surespot, Telegram or Kik, according to security memos reviewed by The Wall Street Journal.
    In August, Islamic State supporters lighted up social media over an apparent cyber bombshell. IS Hacking Division claimed responsibility for hacking into the social-media accounts of hundreds of U.S. military members. The group published lists of 1,481 names, departments, email addresses, passwords and phone numbers, warning, “we are in your emails and computer systems, watching and recording your every move, we have your names and addresses, we are in your emails and social media accounts, we are extracting confidential data.”
    The hacked list of U.S. military names was retweeted on Aug. 11 by @AbuHu55ain_911, the last known social-media profile on Twitter for Mr. Hussain.
    That feed has since been deleted, as has the Twitter feed of his wife, a 45-year-old British onetime punk rocker named Sally Jones who converted to Islam and traveled to Syria to marry Mr. Hussain.
    Mr. Hussain appears to have institutionalized Islamic State’s interest in fostering an electronic army. Supporters send daily entreaties to Muslims around the world to move to the caliphate. They also regularly make specialized recruitment drives. A list of needed professional skills published on Islamic State media outlets on Jan. 3 included hackers, “penetrators” and computer programmers.

    WSJ : Investor Group Considering Cutting $9 Billion Offer for China’s Qihoo 360

    Investor Group Considering Cutting $9 Billion Offer for China’s Qihoo 360
    Buyout of tech firm would be largest take-private deal for a U.S.-listed Chinese company

    The consortium that has offered $9 billion to buy out China’s Qihoo 360 Technology is considering cutting that bid after the nation’s market rout. PHOTO: ASSOCIATED PRESS

    The investor group offering to buy out Qihoo 360 Technology Co. is considering cutting its $9 billion bid after China’s stock-market rout lowered valuations, a person with knowledge of the matter said.
    The proposed buyout would be the largest take-private deal for a U.S.-listed Chinese company.
    The Internet-services provider’s shares closed at $51.29 Thursday in New York trading, one-third below the nonbinding $77-a-share offer made in June by its chairman, Zhou Hongyi, and a clutch of investors including venture-capital firm Sequoia Capital China and Chinese securities firm Citic Securities Co. The person said discussions among the investor group members on revising the offer have taken place in recent days, but cautioned that no firm decision has been made on lowering the bid.

    Because the Qihoo 360 offer, like the more than dozen made for U.S.-listed Chinese companies earlier this year, was nonbinding,Mr. Zhou’s buyout group can alter the terms of the offer, or withdraw it. Other investors in the consortium include boutique investment bank China Renaissance Holdings Ltd. and Golden Brick Capital Private Equity.
    Qihoo 360 declined to comment.
    The original $9 billion offer was made in June at the height of China’s stock market boom, when frothy valuations in China’s domestic stock market lured the managers of U.S.-listed Chinese companies to embark on such proposed take-private deals with the aim of listing back home.
    Advertisement

    Those valuations in China have since come down to earth and few of the take-private offers have been completed this year, leaving investors skeptical about the remaining nonbinding bids. Many of those deals, as in the case of Qihoo 360, involve shares trading at a steep discount.
    Some of the deals, however, have been making progress toward completion. WuXi PharmaTech (Cayman) Inc. entered into adefinitive agreement with investors Aug. 14 to go private, moving the $3.3 billion buyout deal one step closer to completion.
    The government’s decision to halt Chinese domestic initial public offerings has cut off a key avenue for investors’ eventual exit, and clouds the outlook for future deals to be able to arbitrage difference in valuations. Shares of many U.S.-listed take-private targets are now down significantly from their offer prices.
    There is precedent for a Chinese buyout group lowering its bid in such a transaction. Among 38 completed take-private deals involving Chinese companies that had been listed on New York exchanges, one of them had a final takeover price lower than the initial offer, according to Dealogic. In 2012, Chinese metal-and-steel company Fushi Copperweld Inc. was taken private by an investor group including its co-chief executive, Li Fu, and private-equity firm Abax Global Capital Ltd. for $9.50 a share after the consortium lowered its offer by 17% from an initial $11.50.
    The buyout group pursuing Qihoo 360 will need to win over the company’s independent special committee, advised by J.P. Morgan Chase & Co., to have its bid accepted. A lower offer could open up the negotiations between the buyout group and the special committee to greater scrutiny from outside investors and regulators.

    WSJ : China’s Tesla Could Lose Power

    China’s Tesla Could Lose Power
    Chinese government support is key to BYD’s sales of hybrid and electric cars


    While more investors are plugging into the reality of China’s slowdown these days, the country’s version of Tesla is at risk of being disconnected from it—maybe literally.
    Electric-car maker BYD reported revenue for the first half of the year up 21% year-over-year, even as China’s overall car-sales growthdecelerated to 4.7%, the slowest pace since 2009. BYD can certainly boast that its new-age vehicles electrify its relative performance. It sold about four times as many electric and hybrid cars in this period as the year before, many of these plug-in hybrids.
    Key to this performance is Chinese government support. Besides subsidies for both consumers and companies, officials in some citiesfreely issue license plates for many electric and hybrid vehicles, the shortage of which is a major obstacle for conventional car sales.

    In exchange for a free license, though, officials in Shanghai require consumers to prove that they have a charging pole to plug in the hybrid. BYD says it refers consumers to a third party that can certify the consumer ordered a pole, even if it isn’t installed.
    It is not hard to imagine that more than a few consumers in China own a certificate but not actually a pole to connect to. It is also not hard to imagine authorities, conscious of such workarounds in a struggling economy, tightening enforcement and affecting BYD sales in the process.

    Even if government support stays steady, BYD is sure to face competition. Many of its peers will launch electrics and hybrids in the next two years, notes Macquarie’s Janet Lewis. Indigenous car maker Great Wall Motor is one of them, and will likely price its cars cheap. BMW and Tesla already offer electric models perhaps more attractive to the status-conscious.
    Electric and hybrid vehicles make up just 19% of BYD’s total revenue. The rest is made up of conventional cars, batteries, solar cells and handsets, not exactly businesses whose profit potential excites these days. BYD’s first-half net-profit margin was 1.5%, compared with double digits at local car makers Geely and Great Wall.
    BYD’s biggest disconnect is that its Hong Kong shares trade at 28 times forward earnings when no car maker trades above 10 times in the current slowdown. True, BYD’s valuation has fallen since it peaked at 68 times in early 2014, including substantially this year as investors fled highflying Chinese stocks. But that just means another dose of reality could cause the shares to fall further.

    (Wansquare) Maurel et Prom penalized by the drop of black gold

    The oil company is state just after the announcement of its merger with MPI, of disappointing interim results in the context of falling oil prices. Nevertheless, the company is confident and hopes through several transformations, return to profitability by the end of the year.

    The title of the French oil company Maurel et Prom is up this morning at the Paris Stock Exchange: at noon, the action was gaining 0.6%, while the CAC fell 0.06%. The company nevertheless suffered in the first half of a difficult external environment plunging his record in the negative. But the company wants it reassuring and combative morning and managed to convince investors of the rapid return of its profits.

    First, Maurel & Prom has taken care to announce its absorption project of his old Nigerian subsidiary, MPI whose group had separated in December 2011, together with the publication of its interim results in demiteinte. This should enable it to strengthen and consolidate its market position. So successful strategy as this move was unsurprisingly very well received by investors and the MPI title also flew him this morning to 6.75% on the Paris Stock Exchange.

    This merger should enable cost synergies and tax savings. And the company really needs at this difficult time for oil companies. Indeed, like all its counterparts, Maurel & Prom was hurt by plummeting oil prices and therefore saw their accounts fall into the red in the first half of 2015. Over the first six months of the year, the net loss of group reaches 43.7 million euros against a profit of € 59.3 million last year. Regarding sales, the latter fell to 157.8 million euros against 295.5 million a year ago.

    Despite this bad biannual report and a price per barrel of oil that shows no sign of improvement, Maurel & Prom does not address the second part of the year defeatist. To head out of the water, the oil group plans to drastically reduce its investments by abandoning such its mining projects in Peru and Mozambique. Moreover, the oil company also plans to halve its investments and production development through the first half and no new exploration drilling is planned by December.

    With all this restructuring, the group believes that it will have positive results in the second half 2015. These optimistic expectations on the part of the French group are based on a barrel of Brent at $ 50 for the rest of fiscal year 2015. Nevertheless, a slight wobble could turn the tide completely showing much uncertainty over the group accounts: "A downward variation of 5 dollars of our assumptions would result in a negative cash variation of € 12 million second half of 2015, "warned Maurel et Prom this morning.

    (Wansquare) Maurel et Prom pénalisé par la chute de l'or noir

    La compagnie pétrolière fait état juste après l’annonce de sa fusion avec MPI, de résultats semestriels décevants dans le contexte de la chute des prix du pétrole. Néanmoins, la société se montre confiante et espère, grâce à plusieurs transformations, renouer avec les bénéfices d’ici à la fin de l’année. 

    Le titre de la compagnie pétrolière française Maurel et Prom est en hausse ce matin à la Bourse de Paris : à midi, l’action gagnait 0,6%, alors que le CAC baissait de 0,06%. La société a pourtant souffert au premier semestre d’un environnement extérieur difficile plongeant son bilan dans le négatif. Mais la société se veut ce matin rassurante et combative et parvient à convaincre les investisseurs du retour rapide de ses bénéfices. 

    Tout d’abord, Maurel et Prom a pris soin d’annoncer son projet d’absorption de son ancienne filiale nigériane, MPI dont le groupe s’était séparé en décembre 2011, en même temps que la publication de ses résultats semestriels en demiteinte. Cette opération devrait lui permettre de renforcer et de consolider sa position sur le marché. Stratégie payante donc car cette manœuvre a été sans surprise très bien perçue par les investisseurs et le titre de MPI s’envolait lui aussi ce matin à 6,75% sur la Bourse parisienne. 

    Ce rapprochement devrait permettre des synergies de coûts et des économies fiscales. Et la société en a bien besoin en cette période difficile pour les sociétés pétrolières. En effet, comme tous ses homologues, Maurel et Prom a été pénalisé par la chute vertigineuse des cours du pétrole et a donc vu ses comptes tomber dans le rouge au premier semestre 2015. Sur les six premiers mois d’exercice, la perte nette du groupe atteint les 43,7 millions d’euros contre un bénéfice de 59,3 millions d’euros l’an passé. Concernant son chiffre d’affaires, ce dernier est tombé à 157,8 millions d’euros contre 295,5 millions il y a un an. 

    Malgré ce mauvais bilan semestriel et un prix du baril de pétrole qui ne montre aucun signe d’amélioration, Maurel et Prom n’aborde pas la deuxième partie de l’année défaitiste. Pour sortir la tête de l’eau, le groupe pétrolier prévoit de réduire drastiquement ses investissements en abandonnant par exemple ses projets d’extraction au Pérou et au Mozambique. Par ailleurs, la société pétrolière prévoit également de réduire de moitié ses investissements de production et développement par rapport au premier semestre et aucun nouveau forage d’exploration n’est prévu d’ici à décembre. 

    Avec toutes ces restructurations, le groupe estime qu’il pourra présenter des résultats positifs dès le second semestre 2015. Ces prévisions optimistes de la part du groupe français sont basées sur un baril de Brent à 50 dollars pour le reste de l’exercice 2015. Néanmoins, une légère oscillation pourrait renverser complètement la tendance montrant bien encore l’incertitude pesant sur les comptes du groupe : « Une variation à la baisse de 5 dollars de nos hypothèses se traduirait par une variation de trésorerie négative de 12 millions d'euros au second semestre 2015 », a prévenu Maurel et Prom ce matin.

    (Citi) European Media Publicis, Vivendi, TF1, Prosieben, SKy,....

    * What's Changing in this Report? — In this report we make 5 changes to recommendations and update forecasts/valuation for another 6 companies (see figure 1 for a summary of changes). We upgrade Publicis and DMGT to Buy from Neutral. We also upgrade ProSiebenSat.1 and Schibsted to Neutral from Sell. Against this we downgrade Vivendi to Sell. Alongside this we look at the outlook for the 2H2015E and FY2016E in 7.5 charts. We also consider the top 10 frequently asked questions from investors. Our top picks are TF1, Sky and Lagardere; our key
    Sells are Informa, Wolters Kluwer and Vivendi.