(BFW) Merkel, Hollande to Jointly Assess Greece Situation on Monday


BFW 07/05 16:16 *MERKEL, HOLLANDE TO JOINTLY ASSESS GREECE SITUATION ON MONDAY
BFW 07/05 16:16 *MERKEL TO MEET WITH HOLLANDE IN PARIS MONDAY
Merkel, Hollande to Jointly Assess Greece Situation on Monday
2015-07-05 16:22:18.596 GMT


By Brian Parkin
(Bloomberg) -- Chancellor Merkel, President Hollande to
hold talks in Paris Monday from 18:30, followed by working
dinner, German govt spokesman Steffen Seibert says today in e-
mail.

* Talks “to share assessment of situation after Greek
referendum and to address continuation of Franco-German
close cooperation in this matter”



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>>>Rise of the Robocar. Uber would buy all tesla production

Rise of the RoboCar: Uber CEO Says He’d Buy 500k Self-Driving Cars From Tesla Motors Inc (NASDAQ:TSLA)


Tesla Motors Inc (NASDAQ:TSLA) is set to put a self-driving car on the road this Summer, and the firm’s attempts to make cars run themselves are attracting a huge amount of attention. Uber is one of the firms with the most to gain from the introduction of the RoboCar, and the firm’s CEO has made a dangerous promise about his intentions once Elon Musk gets his self-driving car on the road.

Tesla Motors Inc Uber deal - Rise of the Robocar

Steve Jurvetson, a partner at Draper Fisher Jurvetson, said that he spoke to Uber CEO Travis Kalanick about the Tesla Motors RoboCar. He said that if Tesla can make cars autonomous by 2020 he’ll buy 500,000 of them. Elon Musk says that he expects to build 500,000 cars by that year, including the Model S sedan, the Model X SUV and the mid-range Model 3.


Elon Musk builds the impossible

Tesla Motors CEO Elon Musk has a vision for the future and that future is approaching fast. What Musk has accomplished in just a few years is impressive to say the least. Before getting to Robocars let’s look at some of what Musk has accomplished since the sale of Paypal in 2002.
SpaceX was founded in 2002 and by 2012 the company was sending its Dragon spacecraft to the International Space Station. 10 years may seem like a long time, but keep in mind that SpaceX is a privately funded start-up building space ships. That’s impressive.
Tesla Motors, Inc was selling it’s first 100% electric vehicle, the Tesla Roadster in 2008 followed by the Model S in 2012. Two more Tesla EVs are coming to market relatively soon, the Model X and the more affordable Model 3. Even with much reported delays in production and delivery of the new models, Tesla Motors is the only automaker that seems to be delivering on it’s promise to make EVs available to the masses.
Elon Musk is making a habit of delivering what many would have believed impossible just a decade ago. That makes Mr. Kalanick’s comment a dangerous one. It seems, however, that he’s not making a bet against Elon, he’s just recognizing how useful a RoboCar would be to him if released in 2020.
That’s good for Uber, because those that bet against Mr. Musk usually lose. Just ask the thousands, if not millions, of traders who have been shorting Tesla Motors since the firm went public back in 2010.
Uber bears the cost of the RoboCar

If Uber could get rid of the drivers that form the basis of its business, it would expand its margins, change the nature of transport forever, and make its investors very, very wealthy.

In order to get there Uber has been putting millions into the technology. It might manage to save money if another firm gets there first, especially if that firm were to share its tech with the world.

Bill Gates, former CEO at Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT) told the Financial Times on Wednesday, June 24 that Uber may be ahead of the likes of Google and Apple in the race to the self-driving car.

Izabella Kaminska, who writes about self-driving tech for FT Alphaville, reported that Gates called the self-driving car “the Real Rubicon” in terms of the future of the economy. He added that Travis Kalanick has the biggest R&D budget in the self-driving world and, despite his late entry, he may get there.

Elon Musk and Tesla Motors are already very far ahead of Uber on that front, and the gap may widen if Mr. Musk is able to go ahead with his self-driving ideas. The question is whether Tesla Motors can beat Uber to the punch, and whether Mr. Kalanick will pony up if the firm has 500,000 self-driving cars on the road by 2020.

Self-driving at Tesla Motors

Tesla Motors Inc (NASDAQ:TSLA) will put some sort of self-driving car on the road this year. The update for the Model S, which will also likely appear in the release version of the Model X SUV, will allow a Tesla to stay inside a lane on a long drive and maintain its speed.

On private land the Model S will be able to park itself in the garage and drive out to meet you at your door when summoned. There’s a lot of legal ground to cover before Tesla Motors gets a real self-driving car onto the road, however.

Elon Musk is stressing that the Summer update is “simply meant as a driver-assistance feature.” The car won’t drive itself, because that would likely break the law. Musk thinks a full RoboCar will be ready in about 3 years, just in time for Mr. Kalanick to buy up every single Tesla on the road today.

Investing in the RoboCar at Uber

Assuming that Tesla Motors gets there, the average price of its self-driving cars will likely be north of $40,000. The Model 3 is going to sell for around $35,000, likely after grants and tax breaks, but the average mix will be drawn higher by the Model S and Model X.

Leaving $40,000 as a speculative midpoint, the Uber purchase would amount to around $20 billion if Mr. Kalanick follows through on his idea. In it latest round of funding Uber was valued at $50 billion by investors. If the firm keeps on its current growth path, that $20 billion may not be too much to reach for.

Uber doesn’t have that much in the way of cash and capital right now, but the firm has had no trouble getting capital for its own push into self-driving. If Tesla Motors offers a ready-made solution to Uber’s wage problem that may be money well-spent.

At the same time, Tesla Motors could do with that cash. The firm’s finances are in a tricky state right now. Elon Musk says that his company won’t make a profit until 2020, possibly with Uber’s help, while the firm is forced to take on more and more debt in order to get its cars made and sold.

Elon Musk fights the law

Tesla Motors now has a huge incentive to get the RoboCar on the road by 2020, but Mr. Musk will need to get the laws rewritten in order to make that happen. He’s had mixed results in trying to change state law on how he’s allowed to sell the Model S in recent years, but he may have more support as he tries to make cars drive themselves.

Taking the labor out of transport could result in huge savings for all sorts of firms right across the world, and it’s likely to get more support for that than from the traditional car-makers that may lobby to have RoboCar rights reined in.

Elon Musk thinks that the tech to make a car drive itself will be working at Tesla in around 3 years, leaving him two years to fight for the right of users to use it. Road law has already been softened in that direction in states like California, but it’s likely that Uber is looking for an absolute self-driving car before it’s going to buy any from Tesla Motors.

Meanwhile Uber’s own team is working on getting a Tesla Motors competitor onto the road. The self-driving Uber could kill a good chunk of the market for a Tesla Motors RoboCar.


The RoboCar, and a massive injection of cash from firms like Uber, may be the only thing that can secure a solid future for Tesla Motors. The race is now on, and only another miracle from Mr. Musk, in both the tech and the legal worlds, will be able to secure the massive order that Mr. Kalanick has promised.

FT : Monsanto’s Grant challenges Syngenta’s resistance to $45bn bid



Monsanto’s Grant challenges Syngenta’s resistance to $45bn bid

Hugh Grant, Monsanto CEO, listens to a question during an interview in Chicago, Illinois, U.S., on Friday, Jan. 8, 2019. Photographer: Tim Boyle/Bloomberg News©Bloomberg
Monsanto chief executive Hugh Grant
The head of US agribusiness company Monsanto, who is pursuing an unsolicited $45bn takeover of Syngenta, has challenged the Swiss company to justify its resistance to the offer and questioned its ability to deliver similar returns.
In an interview with the Financial Times during a European tour to win over Syngenta shareholders, Monsanto chairman and chief executive Hugh Grant said: “The way I was trained, when you up your bid and the other side rejects it, they must point to a source of value that you have not already seen yourself.”

The US group made an approach for Syngenta in April, offering cash and stock worth SFr449 per share. The bid is a 43 per cent premium to the Swiss company’s unaffected share price. Monsanto in June revised its bid by adding a $2bn termination fee, which was also rejected.
Michel Demaré, Syngenta chairman, last month said the board unanimously rejected Monsanto’s “unsolicited and unwanted offer” which “significantly” undervalued the Swiss group. He also highlighted concerns over the ability to execute a deal to create what would be the most powerful seed and chemicals business in the world.
Syngenta reiterated on Friday that it would not open its books at the current offer price and highlighted its profit growth since 2000. Its shares rose about 1 per cent on Friday to SFr400.3.
Mr Grant said the board should explain why the 43 per cent premium was insufficient and said any increase in the offer price would have to be based on due diligence. “I am not bidding against myself,” he said.
He expressed doubts about Syngenta’s ability to hit its profit targets as a standalone company. “I think we can improve the performance of that business. They’ve struggled through both ends of the commodities cycle; $6 corn wasn’t too spiffy for them either,” the 57-year-old Scottish executive said.

Mr Grant sought to differentiate Monsanto’s failure to so far bring Syngenta to the negotiating table from US pharma group Pfizer’s failed bid for the UK’s AstraZeneca last year. “One of the fundamental differences here is that you have both communities of shareholders saying that this combination makes a lot of sense. I don’t think that was the case with [Pfizer and AstraZeneca].”
Regarding additional deal protections, Mr Grant said the $2bn break-fee was equivalent to a year of pre-tax income for Syngenta. “When you make the break-fee bigger than that, the danger becomes that you incentivise bad behaviour. The break-fee becomes the deal. It becomes the bright shiny object.”

The Monsanto chief executive warned that the lack of engagement from the Syngenta board could lead the US company to seek alternative acquisition targets in the agricultural chemicals sector.
“[The process] has a shelf life. I think their behaviour at the moment erodes the likelihood of a deal being completed,” he said, adding “If not [Syngenta] we would look for alternatives in that space.”
Mr Grant also reiterated his plans to execute a tax-inversion deal, whereby the merged company would be redomiciled from the US to the UK.
Washington has sought to clamp down on acquisitions that allow US companies to escape taxes by moving overseas. Mr Grant argued that his deal was different.
“I’ve watched some of these deals where a very large American company swallows a very small Irish or Dutch business, where the logic is all about tax. This isn’t that. This creates a whole new business platform,” he said.

>>> Ferrari holding likely to be listed in Netherlands



Ferrari holding likely to be listed in Netherlands 

A holding created for Ferrari, the luxury Italian car group owned by Italian-US car group FCA is likely to be listed in the Netherlands, Italian language daily Il Sole 24 Ore reported. The report cited FCA CEO Sergio Marchionne who added that for tax purposes Ferrari would be registered in the UK. The item cited Marchionne as noting that this was a similar structure as to that existing for FCA since 2014.

Marchionne estimated the minimum value of Ferrari at EUR 10bn, the report continued. Marchionne reiterated that a 10% stake would be floated.

Il Sole 24 Ore

(BFW) Saint-Gobain CEO Says French Construction Isn’t Picking Up


BFW 07/04 13:29 *SAINT-GOBAIN CEO SAYS FRENCH CONSTRUCTION NOT PICKING UP
BN 07/04 13:29 *SAINT-GOBAIN CEO SPEAKS AT CONFERENCE IN AIX EN PROVENCE
Saint-Gobain CEO Says French Construction Isn’t Picking Up
2015-07-04 13:35:59.816 GMT


By Francois de Beaupuy
(Bloomberg) -- Saint-Gobain CEO Pierre-Andre de Chalendar
says that small French companies are afraid to hire. He also
said at Cercle des Economistes conference in Aix en Provence
that:

* backlog of small builders tends to grow in recent weeks
* small companies prefer delaying works than hiring staff
* France must tackle labor market rigidities that are
hampering hiring and productivity gains


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(BFW) Varoufakis Says Schaeuble Wanted Grexit Already in 2012: FAS


Varoufakis Says Schaeuble Wanted Grexit Already in 2012: FAS
2015-07-04 15:44:08.556 GMT


By Weixin Zha
(Bloomberg) -- “Schaeuble already made clear in 2012, that
he would prefer a Grexit”, Greek Finance Minister Yanis
Varoufakis says in interview with Frankfurter Allgemeine
Sonntagszeitung.

* Varoufakis confident Greeks will vote “no” on Sunday
* Expects agreement to be reached on Monday independent of
referendum result
* In case of yes-vote, agreement will be according to creditor
institutions: Varoufakis

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lpaulsson@bloomberg.net

WSJ: hina to Suspend New Stock Sales to Preserve Liquidity



China to Suspend New Stock Sales to Preserve Liquidity
World’s second-largest economy also plans to establish market stabilization fund

BEIJING—China has decided to suspend new stock sales and establish a market-stabilization fund aimed at fighting off the worst equities selloff in years, as concerns grow among China’s leadership that the stock-market malaise could be spreading to the other parts of the world’s second-largest economy.

Senior officials from the State Council, China’s cabinet, the central bank, its top securities regulatory agency and other financial agencies held a meeting Saturday to discuss another round of measures to help arrest the stock slide.

The move, which will affect billions of dollars of initial public offerings in the pipeline, comes as the benchmark Shanghai Composite Index has lost more than a quarter of its value since a high set June 12. Previous steps including an interest-rate cut by the central bank have failed to impress investors, many of whom have been forced to unwind their leveraged bets as stocks continue to drop.

Chief among the decisions made is to halt new initial public offerings in a bid to preserve liquidity in an increasingly volatile market, the people said. Officials also discussed the setup of a market-stabilization fund.

It was unclear how long the ban would last.


The fund will get its initial financing from China’s big securities firms. According to a statement from the Securities Association of China on Saturday afternoon, some 21 Chinese brokerages led by Citic Securities Co. will invest the equivalent of 15% of their net assets as of the end of June, or no less than 120 billion yuan ($19.3 billion) in total, in the fund. But that amount is unlikely to be enough. The plunge in Chinese equities in the past three weeks has wiped out about $2.4 trillion in market value, or about 10 times Greece’s gross domestic product last year.

As a result, the People’s Bank of China is expected to provide financing to the stabilization fund either directly or indirectly through the country’s giant sovereign-wealth fund, the people said. Any such move would require approval by the State Council, the Chinese government’s top decision-making body.

A further selloff in stocks would hurt Chinese companies’ ability to raise funds and pay off debt, which, in turn, could add more downward pressure on the economy. Fears also are growing among policy makers that the stock turmoil could lead to instability in the broader financial system.



Troubling Lessons in China’s Crumbling Stock Market
Trader Fights the Market Tide in Shanghai
A Shortage of Tools for Betting Against China
China’s Stance on IPOs Adds Volatility to Market
Of particular concern is the mountain of debt by investors who borrowed to buy shares. Debt incurred by so-called margin financing has risen almost fivefold over the past year to about two trillion yuan ($323 billion) last month. The jump in such leveraged bets has led to fears of a stock-market collapse in China, which could wipe out the savings of millions of small-time investors and ignite social instability. Meanwhile, it could also pose a serious threat to the country’s banking system as many borrowers have taken out loans using stocks as collateral. A drop in stock prices would mean banks are owed much more than the collateral is worth, resulting in more losses for the lenders at a time when bad-loan levels are already rising.

On Thursday, Zhou Xiaochuan, China’s central-bank governor, said the PBOC must “hold fast to the bottom line that no systemic or regional financial risks should occur.”

The market-stabilization fund will first invest in blue-chip exchange-traded funds to help stabilize the main market, the people said. Its mandate could be widened to include the broader market.

The governments of many Asian economies including Hong Kong, Thailand, South Korea and Japan intervened in the capital markets during the 1998 Asia financial crisis through market-stabilization funds or other means. The U.S., meanwhile, also spent hundreds of billions of dollars purchasing distressed assets and providing cash directly to banks during the 2008 global financial crisis.

Chinese officials over the past week have dug deep for measures to stop massive stock selloffs. Still, the array of attempts—from easing restrictions on investing with borrowed money to interest-rate reduction—so far have failed to encourage investors to buy.

Many analysts are attributing the continued declines to margin calls, which brokerages issue to investors who have borrowed money from them when stocks fall below a certain threshold.

In the statement by the Securities Association, the 21 brokerages also pledged not to reduce any proprietary investments but to try to increase investments in the stock market as long as the Shanghai index stays below 4,500. The index closed down 5.77% on Friday at 3686.92.