International Business News

Accor announced Thursday an increase in its target operating profit in 2010 and has unveiled a new debt reduction target.

The fourth global hotel group, a rival giants InterContinental, Marriott and Hilton and Starwood, will report an operating profit of between 370 and 390 million euros this year, sharply up from 236 million recorded in 2009.

Accor, which has reported interim results up, also plans to reduce its adjusted net debt of 600 to 650 million euros in 2010.So far, the company had forecast a decline in its debt of 450 million over the year.

The group had announced in May a program of disposals of hotel assets for an amount of two billion euros over the period 2010-2013.

In the first six months of 2010, gross operating Accor rose 17.4% (13% on a comparable basis) to 833 million euros, showing the gross margin to 29.2%.

The operating profit marked a growth of 120% (109.3% on a comparable basis) to 154 million euros while sales in accordance with what was announced July 21 the company is progressing 4.7% on a comparable basis to 2.84 billion.

Accor publishes its first results since the demerger of its business prepaid, Edenred, July 2.

Accor announced Monday the sale of 48 hotels in Europe for 367 million euros. This decision follows the announcement in early July, the sale to Newrest 60% of its business catering on trains of the Compagnie des Wagons-Lits (CWL).

Accor is also preparing to separate from its 49% stake in the casino group Lucien Barriere.

The U.S. stocks closed lower Tuesday, penalized by the publication of statistics of home resales already been added to fears surrounding the health of perennials the world's biggest economy.

The Dow Jones closed with a loss of 133.96 points, or 1.32%, to 10,040.45. The Standard & Poor's 500 broad, fell 15.49 points, or 1.45%, to 1051.87 while the Nasdaq Composite Index ended down 35.87 points (-1.66%) to 2123 76.All three indexes have ended at levels unprecedented in seven weeks.

Sales of existing homes in the United States in July suffered an unprecedented fall that brings them back to their lowest level in more than 15 years, a deteriorating just confirmed that the U.S. recovery loses much of its momentum.

Shortly before the publication of these statistics, Charles Evans, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago, said that the risk of a relapse into recession in the U.S. economy had increased in the last six months even if such an outcome is unlikely in his eyes, a recovery "modest" is being said.

Home resales fell 27.2% last month compared to June to 3.83 million units annualized, the lowest level since May 1995, announced the National Association of Realtors (NAR) The American Federation of Estate Agents. Economists polled by Reuters were expecting a much less pronounced decline from 12.0% to 4.7 million.

This statistic has led to a decline in property values.The PHLX Housing Index was down by 1.05%.

"The economic statistics of the day were added to a long list of evidence showing that there is a slowdown in the economy," said Michael Sheldon of RDM Financial.

"Investors were expecting a mediocre statistics, but today's figures have revealed the extent of the disaster."

These events have however not been taken on renewed vigor of the activity on the front of mergers and acquisitions.

Hewlett-Packard and Dell continued to struggle to capture the data storage specialist 3PAR.According to Bloomberg, Dell is preparing to improve its offer after Monday HP has $ 1.6 billion on the table.

3PAR has closed up 3.64% to 27.04 dollars while HP has lost 1.65% to 38.39 dollars and Dell fell 2.97% to 11.58 dollars.

The medical equipment maker Medtronic has also plunged 10.80% to 31.21 dollars after reporting a drop in sales and lowered its forecast.

The announcement weighed on the sector and the Health Sector Index S & P lost 2.03%.

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

Major European stock markets finished higher Wednesday for the first time in over a week, boosted by banks and U.S. companies quarterly results.

The Paris Bourse closed up 0.75% to 3493.92 points.

While the results of their strength tests will be published Friday, banking stocks were among the most requested on Wednesday.The Stoxx index of European banking core values thus gained 1.01%.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel said that resistance tests conducted with European banks to help restore confidence in the financial sector.

The maker of Durex condoms and Scholl sandals SSL International has jumped from his side of 33.45% after the announcement of its takeover by the British household products and health Reckitt Benckiser for 2.5 billion pounds ( 2.97 billion euros).

HSBC Holdings announced the acquisition of the retail banking and commercial banking at Royal Bank of Scotland in India, the British bank nationalized virtually continuing its withdrawal from foreign markets.

HSBC announced it would pay a premium of up to $ 95 million (75.8 million) compared to the net asset activity during the closing of the transaction, expected to first half of next year.

The price could be reduced in cases of increased bad debt during the next two years.

Sources had previously said qu'HSBC redeem these activities, which have 1.1 million customers, more than 1,800 employees and 31 divisions in India.The gross value of these assets were worth $ 1.8 billion at end March.

Currently, HSBC has about two million customers and 50 divisions in 29 Indian cities.

RBS, owned 83% by the British government, seeks to refocus on its core business and sold off in recent weeks some of his small business.

The group puts an end to a decade of international development, raising over 2.5 billion dollars by withdrawing more than twenty activities over the past 14 months.

Johnson Controls said to be still interested in some of Visteon's business despite rejection suffered by its offer of 1.2 billion dollars (one billion euros) on Tuesday.

In a statement, the American automotive supplier said it had sent a letter to his competitor in which it reaffirmed its proposed acquisition, without giving further details.

Visteon said Tuesday its rejection of the bid from Johnson Controls for its determination to stick to its own roadmap to exit from bankruptcy.

On May 21, Johnson was caught short financial analysts by offering to buy the business vehicle interiors and electronics.

Visteon, a leading supplier of Ford, was placed last year under the protection of Chapter 11 of U.S. bankruptcy law in order to reorganize its business and to clean up its balance sheet.

In the first three months of the year, the OEM posted a net profit of 233 million against two million a year ago.