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Carrefour said Tuesday net income of 82 million euros in the first half against a loss a year earlier, and confirmed its guidance for full year 2010 by including a demand that remains strong in emerging countries .

The number two worldwide in distribution, after Wal-Mart, said in a statement it is an operating profit around 3.1 billion euros, as already stated mid-July.

The first six months of year, operating profit has already reached nearly 1.1 billion euros.

"We're quite pleased with the sales in July, a little disappointed by sales cons of August," said Pierre Bouchut, Carrefour's chief financial officer, during a conference call."The trend in emerging markets remains strong."

In the second quarter, Carrefour has benefited from the dynamism of emerging economies to reach a turnover exceeding expectations, nearly 25 billion euros, up 6.3%, offsetting a contraction in sales in Europe, mainly in France, Belgium, Spain and Italy, as well as in other countries of southern Europe such as Greece or Romania.

The group, which seeks to save 4.5 billion euros over three years to improve its margins, said he also cut costs by 236 million euros in the first half of the year, a target of 500 million for all 2010.

Asked about the Asian assets of the group, Pierre Bouchut has refused to comment on reports about a possible sale of assets Malaysian, Thai and Singaporean group.

"We do not comment on such rumors," said the CFO."Our goal is to build on certain markets and over time, without doubt, take the decision to abandon certain other markets."

"At what point will we take this decision? Will we really?" Everything remains open, "he added.

According to several sources, Carrefour tries to sell its assets in Malaysia, Thailand and Singapore to focus its efforts on China and India.

This could generate some 800 million euros in the French distributor.

PTT, Thailand first group in the energy sector, has already expressed interest in taking over the assets in Thailand.

At the Paris Bourse, the Crossroad action won 6.42% but underperformed the CAC 40 rose 19.43%.

The stock closed Monday at 36.11 euros, up from just over 1%.

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%.

American International Group (AIG) reported a quarterly loss as its results were recipients a year earlier, due to the recognition of a significant impairment charge.

The American group, owned about 80% by the state, issued under a second quarter net loss of $ 2.7 billion (2.05 billion euros), or $ 3.96 per share, against a profit of $ 1.8 billion ($ 2.3 per share) over the corresponding period last year.

The deficit is mainly due to the insurer an impairment charge of $ 3.3 billion.

In data adjusted, AIG reports a profit of 1.3 billion dollars (1.99 dollars per share), against 1.1 billion dollar ($ 1.71 per share) a year earlier.

In pre-market, the title earned 5.3%, after closing at 39.90 dollars Thursday in New York.

Since the early action took 33% against 7% growth posted by the S & P's insurance industry.

South Korea's LG Electronics, second largest manufacturer of televisions, publishes a profit fall 90% in the second quarter, a decline much steeper than expected.

The range of smartphones in the group, yet undeveloped, is suffering from competition from Apple and Samsung Electronics, which is expected to increase further in the second semester with the launch of new models of smartphones by the rivals.

"Results are not encouraging until the third quarter but that should improve next quarter with the launch of the new smartphone equipped with the Android operating system," said Nam Dae-jong, an analyst at SK Securities.

A fragile economic recovery and growing uncertainty surrounding the European fiscal crisis could also discourage the demand for flat screen televisions and other appliances such as washing machines or refrigerators.

The group reported an operating profit of 126 billion won (81.7 million euros) in the second quarter, against 1,240 million won a year earlier, Thomson Reuters and a consensus of 210 billion won .

Sales of televisions have been affected by a decline of nearly 10% of the euro against the dollar last quarter, inflating the cost of flat panel displays and other production materials priced in dollars.

Europe accounts for about 40% of turnover generated by the segment LG TVs.

With an operating loss of 120 billion won in the quarter, the mobile phone division remains the weak point of the group that plans to double its production in the second quarter. But everything should depend on the success of its smartphone running Google Android to be launched this quarter with 120 operators.

LG Electronics believes that sales of mobile phones should have little upside in the current quarter.

The group has passed 30.6 million phones in the second quarter, against 27.1 million the previous quarter.

Title LG lost 2.88% to 101,000 won on the Seoul stock exchange.

The first European car manufacturer Volkswagen announced Tuesday a capital increase with a volume of over 4 billion euros to partially fund the acquisition of Porsche, which has caused further heavy falls for action.

The group will offer its shareholders 65 million new preference shares without voting rights, for an amount that could reach more than 4 billion euros based on the share price on Tuesday.

The preference share of Volkswagen fell after the announcement.At 14:10 GMT, it lost 7.50% to 67.55 euros, a red lantern up Dax (+0.10%).

This capital increase was certainly expected, but the method disclosed Tuesday by the group are not transparent, "the markets want to know the details," said Heino Ruland, analyst at Research Ruland told Dow Jones Newswires.

The group has yet to set conditions Friday and the price of this capital increase.Pre placement of shares to begin Wednesday and the subscription period extended from March 31 to April 13.

Cash collected from investors in particular are intended to improve the financial structure of Volkswagen against a backdrop of creating an integrated automotive group with Porsche, "said the company Wolfsburg (North) in a statement.

Volkswagen holds 49.9% of Porsche AG, bringing together the activities of automotive manufacturer of cars that he fully intends to acquire by 2011. Porsche will then be added to its nine existing brands.VW had paid 3.9 billion euros for its share.

Shareholders of Volkswagen – the Porsche Holding SE (50% of voting rights), the German state of Lower Saxony (east) (20%) and the emirate of Qatar (17%) – have authorized 2009 to carry out capital increases for a total of up to 8.5 billion euros.

The emirate of Qatar has "reserved the right" to participate in the operation, he considers "an important step in the formation of an integrated group," he said in a separate statement.He also "confirmed its position as a long-term investor in Volkswagen.

But the group has comfortable liquidity (10.6 billion at end-December 2009), and its CFO had said in early March that he would stick to a single capital increase of 4 billion euros.

Cash collected could also finance other future projects "medium term" was "he said.

Volkswagen has already bought in late 2009, 19.9% of Japanese Suzuki and has expressed its intention to establish a large pole with his truck brand Scania and German MAN, which is the main shareholder.

The Tokyo Stock Exchange finished up 0.38% Wednesday, led by technology stocks, themselves brought up by the eve of their American counterparts.

After reaching a high of two months in session at 10,880.62 points, the Nikkei finally closed up 40.88 points to 10,815.03 points while the broader TOPIX, took 4 60 (0.49%) to 951.97 points.

Like other securities sector, Canon gained 1.71%.

Nintendo, meanwhile, jumped 8.51% after saying it planned to launch a new model of its video game console portable DS for playing games in three dimensions.

Some banking stocks have however suffered from the government's decision to revise down its planned privatization of Japan Post. Mizuho Financial Group and Sumitomo Mitsui Financial Group and have yielded respectively 1.04% and 0.71%.