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Heineken, the world's third largest brewer, on Wednesday posted a net half-year exceeded expectations, reducing costs which enabled it to compensate for declining beer sales.

The Dutch group, whose main brands are Heineken and Amstel, has made the first six months of the year net profit up 17% on a comparable basis and before special items to 621 million euros.

Twelve analysts surveyed by Reuters had forecast an average result of 595 million.

The group said growth forecasts of at least 10% of its net earnings over the whole year, indicating that volume trends in Latin America, Africa and Asia, as well as price increases , continue to have an impact on profitability.

The results presented Wednesday to two months include the contribution of the activities of FEMSA Mexican beer, bought by Heineken in order to increase its presence in emerging markets.

Last year, the Dutch made a little more than half its sales in Western Europe.

The action Accor is the largest increase in the CAC 40 Tuesday morning at the Paris Stock Exchange after the announcement by the group of transfer walls 48 of its hotels in Europe for 367 million euros and an insurer a property company.

"The achievement of a significant number of assignments, the return of property investment companies in the market for hotels and good conditions of the transaction, all this confirms the potential value creation of the group's property portfolio," said a trader.

He added that Accor, which publishes Thursday its first half results, "is ahead of its targets on asset disposals, which confirms the willingness of management to accelerate the deleveraging of the group.

CM-CIC Securities considers the "positive set" and also stresses that it "is in line with the strategy" asset-right "Accor launched this year and will result in debt reduction the coming years.

It "also addresses the second goal of Accor, namely get flexibility on the rent with a lease variable," said the broker, which reiterates its advice to buy with a target price of 32 euros.

Credit Suisse is neutral and maintains its price target to 26 euros in the expectation of semi.The broker believes that the disposals will have a limited impact on earnings per share.

The bank added that its 26 euro price target incorporates the potential for recovery of Accor.

The sale announced Monday walls was performed for 80% of the amount with Predica insurance arm of Credit Agricole, and the rest with the Land Walls, a subsidiary of Land Regions.

At 11:10, Accor gains 0.49% to 23.475 euros while the CAC 40 lost 1.37%. Property Walls is 0.35% and Land areas lost 1.21%.

The action goes off in BP down Monday after the detection of a new oil spill near the well damaged in the Gulf of Mexico, traders reported.

In the morning, BP is losing more than 5% while the FTSE 100 index of London Stock Exchange gives him 0.4%.

BP engineers detected an underground oil spill near the well that could be damaged due to the new dome containment set up last week, had informed U.S. authorities on Sunday.

In a statement released Monday morning, BP makes no mention of these leaks and said that the tests are continuing on the site.

The euro has hit a low of 18 months against sterling as the market feels that the debt problems of the euro area may put the currency at a disadvantage compared to the British currency.

Euro briefly touched 81.75 pence, its lowest since November 2008, before recovering.

The U.S. economy grew 2.7% annualized first quarter, according to final estimates released Friday, an increase below the expectations of economists and projection previously announced.

The estimate published last month by the Commerce Department reported a rise of 3.0% of gross domestic product (GDP) in the first quarter.

Economists polled by Reuters had expected a confirmation of this estimate.

The fourth quarter of 2009, the American economy grew by 5.6% annualized.

This revision mainly reflects a lower estimated expenditure of households and businesses, which grew by 3.0% and 2.2% in the first quarter against 3.5% and 3.1% in previous estimate.

Although final figures for the GDP are lower than previous estimates, they mark's third straight quarter of expansion of economic activity in the U.S. after its worst recession since the 1930s.

Carlos Ghosn, CEO of Nissan, revealed Wednesday that it earned 890 million yen (approximately 8 million euros) paid by the Japanese in the fiscal year ending in March.

At these wages, which makes it one of the highest paid executives at the head of a Japanese company, added 1.24 million euros paid in 2009 by Renault, he also chairs.Is half that in 2008, Crisis and variable force.

The total remuneration for the boss of Renault-Nissan was especially expected: the new rules in force in Japan Nippon forcing companies to publish individual salaries of their leaders if their earnings exceed the annual 100 million yen.

Ghosn has consistently defended the pay scale in force at Nissan, than those of its Japanese competitors. He justified the need to compete in the global marketplace and attract talent.

Carlos Ghosn is also a director of the aluminum giant Alcoa and carmaker AvtoVAZ, Russia.