International Business News

The president and CEO of Hewlett-Packard Co., Mark Hurd resigned Friday after being accused of falsifying expense reports to conceal a "close personal relationship" with a woman working for a subcontractor.

The announcement was made during the dip the world's largest maker of personal computers by 10%, Mark Hurd is credited with having brought HP to the highest level in five years at the helm of the U.S. group.

Mark Hurd will be replaced by Chief Financial Officer Cathie Lesjak who is acting as interim executive director.A committee was responsible for appointing a new CEO.

A colleague outside the group, who had worked on the marketing of HP between late 2007 and fall 2009, contacted the Board in June and accused of sexual harassment Mark Hurd, the group said.

An investigation ensued and concluded that Hurd had not breached the code within the company for sexual harassment.

But the CEO of 53 years, married, kept "a close personal relationship" with the woman without the knowledge of the board of directors, said HP.

"The investigation board has concluded that Mark had demonstrated a profound lack of discernment that has seriously damaged his credibility and was highly prejudicial to his ability to lead HP, and Mark agreed," said Mike Holston, director of corporate legal department.

The departure of the CEO was unanimous, he added.

The group says Hurd submitted "number of expense reports inaccurate" to conceal the relationship with the offending subcontractor, which has itself received compensation and refunds without a legitimate reason.

The sum of her falsified expense would reach 20,000 dollars for travel, accommodation and meals shared with the woman according to a source close to the Hurd's statements on the case, who spoke of a "working relationship".

Another source with knowledge of the case made it clear that this woman was not a major subcontractor.

ANTICIPATED RESULTS

Mark Hurd, known for its rigor in cost reduction, said in a statement that the decision to resign was "painful".

"I realized that on some occasions I have not met the standards and principles of trust, respect and integrity that I adopted at HP," he said.

The shock is brutal for investors, who saw Mark Hurd as the chief of the success of the Informatics Group.Since his arrival at the helm of the group five years ago, the stock price has more than doubled.

"Mark Hurd has a large responsibility in the revival of the group," said analyst Jeffrey Fidacaro.

"His departure will leave a big void at the head of the group."

The now former CEO of HP scored his mark, combining the rigor of external growth strategy, which took shape with major acquisitions as the pioneer of the smartphone or Palm, in 2008, EDS Corp., a leading software houses U.S. 13.9 billion.

Analysts said the place of Mark Hurd will be coveted both externally as internally, where the manager's PC division Todd Bradley and chief strategy Shane Robinson figure are potential candidates.

Hurd's departure, they added, should not affect either the strategic direction of the company or its performance.

The announcement was however immediately reflected on the price of HP has lost up to 10% in after-hours transactions, dropping to 41.50 dollars after the meeting ended at 46.30 dollars.

To cushion the shock, the group decided to bring forward the publication of its quarterly results.

He announced on Friday earnings per share to $ 1.08 in non-GAAP standards for the third fiscal quarter offbeat performance slightly higher than that anticipated in the consensus among analysts polled by Thomson Reuters I / B / E / S consensus forecast of $ 1.07.

The company raised its earnings per share over the year to a range of 4.49 to 4.51 against $ 4.45 to 4.50 dollars previously. The consensus is at 4.49 dollars.

HP also said it expects an annual turnover of between 125.3 and 125.5 billion dollars, while analysts are predicting a figure lower than this range to 124.515 billion dollars.

The trade deficit of France fell to 3.796 billion euros from 5.179 billion in June (revised) the previous month, thanks to increased exports find their level two years ago, according to data CVS / CJO published by Customs.

Throughout the first half, the deficit totaled 24.544 billion against 22.928 billion during the first six months of 2009, a decline due mostly to the increase in energy costs.

Six economists polled by Reuters had expected on average a deficit of 4.5 billion euros in June, with estimates ranging from 4.0 to 4.9 billion.

The remainder of May was revised to 5.179 billion from the $ 5,500 billion announced an initial estimate a month ago.

Exports FOB data CVS / CJO surged to 33.016 billion euros against 29.948 billion in May, reaching their highest level since August 2008.

Imports amounted to 36.812 billion euros against 35.127 billion the previous month.

In June, France sold its 26 Airbus reported 1,719,000 euros for 19 aircraft against 1,050 million euros in May

BP announced the sale for 1.9 billion dollars (1.44 billion euros) of its Colombian subsidiary to a consortium of the Canadian Talisman Energy and Ecopetrol, the Colombian national oil company.

This sale is the latest of British Petroleum, which has announced plans to lift a thirty billion through asset sales to offset the costs of the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.

BP has already sold last month to seven billion dollars of assets in the United States, Canada and Egypt, the American Apache.It also plans to divest its assets in Pakistan and Vietnam, which could bring him $ 1.7 billion, in the opinion of analysts.

The Kuwait's oil minister said Tuesday that the national carrier Kuwait Petroleum International might be interested in certain assets from BP.

The emirate's sovereign wealth fund owns shares in British company to the tune of 1.75% and on Monday denied media reports that BP had asked him to reach 3%.

BP announced last week a charge of $ 32.2 billion on its second quarter results, due to the spill, but analysts believe the final slate will be much higher.

The corporate failures have continued to decline in France in June to register down 7.9% on the entire second quarter compared to the same three months of 2009, according to data published on the news website score3.fr business.

The Observatory for the failures identified score3.fr 13,189 openings procedures from April to June against 14,326 a year earlier, a decrease of 7.9% followed a modest decline of 1.8% in first quarter .

On June alone, the failures are the number of 4677, a figure higher than in May (4310), but down 7.2% compared to 5039 cases in June 2009.

"The improvement is particularly noticeable in the areas most affected by the crisis, namely real estate (-30.4%), manufacturing (-21.2%) or construction (-10.9 %), "said Score3.fr, which belongs to the group of business services Pouey International.

Agriculture and fishing have also seen their bankruptcies decline sharply compared to June 2009 (-44%) but some areas remain, however, the sentence, like business services and administrative support (14.4% ), accommodation and food (+3.2%), or transport failures which rose 1.4% compared to June 2009.

After several positive months, financial and insurance for their part, experienced strong growth in their failures (6%) in June a year ago. Developments in this sector, however, positive throughout the quarter with an average decline of 3.2% of failures from April to June 2009.

The detailed figures are available on the website www.score3.fr.

The Bank of Korea raised its key interest rate Friday for the first time since the beginning of the financial crisis and reinforced expectations of a further tightening of monetary policy by predicting strong growth and rising inflation .

The Bank of Korea increased by 25 basis points rate previously set at record low of 2.0%, falling into step with its regional counterparts in Australia, India, Taiwan and Malaysia.

Investors were expecting such an initiative for several weeks in light of the growing confidence shown by the authorities regarding the ability of the fourth largest economy in Asia to consolidate its recovery, despite lingering uncertainties in Europe and the United States.

Most analysts polled by Reuters had forecast, however, on a rate hike in August or September.

The won has increased its earnings to grow by over 1.0% on the session against the dollar.The stock market is, they, remained virtually unchanged.

"Governments in Asia seem relatively confident about the economic outlook despite concerns about the potential impact of euro weakness and the short-term downturn in growth by the rapid pace set earlier this year "said Brian Jackson, a specialist emerging markets at Royal Bank of Canada.

"We expect the Bank of Korea will further increase interest rates by 50 basis points by the end of the year, the risks are increasingly tilted to the upside," he adds.

For a chart on the interest rate and inflation trends: here

PROGRESSIVE CURE

The Governor of the Bank of Korea Kim Choong-soo told reporters that the economy had probably increased more than 7% over the same period last year in the second quarter and throughout the first half.

He also said that inflation should reach 3.0% next year, in the middle of the range the central bank's target of between 2.0 and 4.0%, which analysts said could conduct Bank of Korea to bring its rate of 3.0% by the end of this year.

He also reported a sharp rise in housing loans in June after a period of sluggish growth.

"There is no doubt that the basic rate of 2.0% was very low in view of various factors such as economic growth and inflation outlook," the governor said.

Kim Choong-soo was upbeat on global growth while highlighting the budgetary problems in Europe that it deems the main risk, adding that further turmoil in financial markets were possible.

The tightening of monetary policy the central bank should be gradual as the institution has ensured that its policy would remain accommodative.

"As the policy rate is still very low and the pace of tightening is very gradual, it is still support for the economy and the market impact will not be negative," said Lee Sung Kwon, an economist at Shinhan Investment Corporation.

This is the first increase in interest rates in South Korea since August 2008 and their first change since the beginning of last year.

The NYSE has ended on a note undecided Friday, the Dow Jones 30 industrial yielding 0.05% or 4.99 points at 10,147.81.

The S & P 500 is broader took 3.15 points, or 0.29%, to 1076.84. The Nasdaq Composite Index was on its side of 6.06 points (0.27%) to 2223.48.

These data are likely to vary even slightly.

The Chinese growth model, based on a docile workforce and cheap, is it threatened? The strike in Chinese factories of Honda and suicide clusters among the subcontractor Foxconn electronic, seem at least symbolic of a turn. These two events led to strong wage increases. And Beijing has validated this finding of a lack of remuneration in deciding dramatically Friday to raise the minimum wage by 20%. Twice that during the normal annual adjustment.

In a country accustomed to explosions of anger – with 127,000 protests in 2008 – and where information is locked, it is unclear whether they had the same impact in other times.

240 euros to live in Shenzhen

Until recently, indeed, the authority said that this kind of slippage occurs only in "capitalist" countries.But Premier Wen Jiabao has officially acknowledged the existence of a "certain level of social tension." It is also not a coincidence that the budget for public safety has increased significantly this year. But power is also well aware that the inequalities of wealth, rather than decreasing with the crisis has intensified further.

Further reading: The families that take in France