International Business News

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 rate of the Livret A, the product of savings the most widespread in France, went on Sunday from 1.25% to 1.75% to reflect the acceleration of inflation.

There were some 60 million books A and blue books in France in late 2009, according to figures released Wednesday by the Bank of France.

Individuals then held 59.3 million of outstanding books for 175.5 billion euros and 0.6 million corporate booklets for an outstanding $ 7.9 billion.

The higher rate of pay A booklet was announced July 13 after the publication of figures showing inflation in June rose 1.5% in consumer prices over the year.

The Bank of France is responsible for conducting, on January 15 and July 15 of each year, the calculation of rates of pay passbooks regulated according to formulas that take into account the rates on money market and the increase of consumer prices.

The distribution of the Livret A was extended on 1 January 2009 to all banking networks.

The distribution of the money invested in this product is very concentrated, 42% of assets being deposited on only 7% of books in late 2009, according to the report released Wednesday. Next, 30 million savings books were credited with less than 150 euros.

Schlumberger, a global oilfield services company, reported Friday in an increase in line with expectations, 33% of its quarterly earnings, strong growth of its land in North America offset the effects of the moratorium on drilling offshore in the Gulf of Mexico.

Net income from continuing operations of U.S. group stood at 818 million dollars (632 million euros) over the second quarter, or $ 0.68 per share, against 613 million ($ 0.51 per share) last year.

Turnover rose 7.4% to 5.94 billion dollars.

Analysts on average had forecast earnings per share of $ 0.68 and revenues of 5.915 billion.

In exchange for pre-market action Schlumberger, who finished at 61.30 Thursday, yielded more than 2%.

The moratorium on offshore drilling in the Gulf of Mexico was decided after the explosion and sinking of the platform Deepwater Horizon, operated by BP, which left 11 dead and is causing the worst oil spill from the history of the United States.

But Schlumberger is less affected than, for example, Halliburton, by stopping the activity in the Gulf of Mexico, this region represents only 5% of its turnover.

Boeing said that delivery of the first 787 Dreamliner could be delayed until early 2011 instead of the fourth quarter of 2010, flight tests have revealed some difficulties.

Speaking at a teleconference with the press, Scott Fancher, general manager Dreamliner program, however, said the decision to postpone the delivery of first aircraft from All Nippon Airways (ANA) has yet been taken .

"We found some difficulties that challenge our schedule a bit," he said adding that these difficulties were related to issues of "configuration tools".

Around 17:30 GMT, Boeing retreated 0.51% to 64.42 dollars, wiping out a portion of losses just after the announcement of a possible further delay, while the Dow Jones yielded 0.57 %.

If ever the first delivery was postponed again, the behind the original schedule – May 2008 – would exceed two and a half years.

The beginning of the production launch of the plane was delayed five times in three years and the first flight, which occurred in December 2009, had been postponed six times, due to both a lack of parts, problems design and a two-month strike that affected Boeing plants in 2008.

"We want to play the card of caution and say it could be that delivery is delayed to the first part of next year. But at this point, our schedule still provides a delivery by the end of the year "Scott Fancher continued.

Moments earlier, Boeing said it had revised upwards its forecast of orders for new aircraft by 2029, thanks to an increase in the number of LCCs, the replacement of less fuel efficient aircraft and economic recovery.

The U.S. aircraft manufacturer estimates that 30,900 the number of orders over the next two decades, a figure up 6.5% compared to the forecast of 29,000 made last year.

Oracle has announced a net quarterly profit above expectations, this suggests that the recovery of IT spending continues with companies investing in large infrastructure.

The specialist said that professional software maker Sun Microsystems servers – acquired in January while he was in deficit – helped, excluding special items, totaling more than $ 400 million operating profit.

"Oracle is ahead of its roadmap," said an analyst with Piper Jaffray.

The company earned for the fourth quarter of fiscal year 2009-2010 ended May 31 net income excluding items of $ 0.60 while analysts on average expected $ 0.54, according to Thomson Reuters IB / E / S.

Turnover increased 39% to $ 9.5 billion, a level in line with market expectations. Oracle has acquired Sun for 5.6 billion dollars.

"We did better than expected both in terms of sales as net income," said Jeff Epstein, CFO of Oracle, said in a statement.

Sales of new software rose 14% from a year ago to $ 3.1 billion.Three months ago, Oracle had told anticipate a sales growth of between 3% and 13%.

The Oracle President Charles Phillips said the group took "significant market share" in its German rival SAP software in business management.

After finishing down 2.03% to 22.22 dollars on Wall Street, the title of Oracle jumped more than 4% in trading after-hours trade.

The action, however, declined by some 16% since it hit a high of nine in mid-April.