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Boeing has not ruled out Tuesday the possibility of reducing the price of its bid to build 179 tanker aircraft for the U.S. army, a contract estimated at 25 billion dollars (20 billion euros) it argument once again his great European rival EADS.

U.S. Air Force is currently reviewing applications from two groups, due by July 9, and may request further information.

This is the third time that the Pentagon conducts the tender to replace its fleet of KC-135, whose average age is around 50 years.

The contract is for several years among the priorities of capital projects for the Air Force.

The government usually requires a modified offers and if so, "we will respond," said Dennis Muilenburg, head of Boeing's weapons industry, at the summit organized by Reuters on the aviation and defense Tuesday in Washington.

"Our intention is to continue to offer a winning bid," he said in response to questions about the possibility of a reduction of the bid price at the Pentagon."Beyond that, I can not make specific comments until we have no specific requests of our customers."

The tanker is "a national priority and Boeing is ready to respond by taking into account the priority," he added.

Guy Hicks, a spokesman for the North American branch of EADS, has reacted to these remarks by explaining that an "interactive process with the customer" was committed.

"We have submitted a convincing proposal that corresponds to our trade policy," he said in an email. "We have the most capable tanker in existence.Point. "

The Air Force plans to issue its final decision later this fall, theoretically no later than December 20.

Dennis Muilenburg said that Boeing should decide on a possible revision of its offer price based on the interests of all its stakeholders.

"We will make decisions financially responsible," he added.

The first tender for the contract to supply ships failed in 2004 after a scandal that led to prison the number two arms purchases from the Air Force and a former chief financial officer of Boeing.

In 2008, the Pentagon awarded the contract for 179 aircraft to a consortium of Northrop Grumman and EADS, but the decision was overturned after an appeal by Boeing.

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 organizer of resistance testing, the Committee of European Banking Supervisors (CEBS), will try to find out why six German banks, including Deutsche Bank, were not released Friday details of their holdings of sovereign debt, announced his secretary General to the Financial Times on Monday.

CEBS, said Arnoud Vossen financial daily, had reached agreement with banks on the publication of their holdings of sovereign debt at the time of release of results of resistance tests on Friday.

Now, six German banks have not released the amount and distribution of their deposits in government bonds: Deutsche, Deutsche Postbank, Hypo Real Estate, one German bank to have failed the tests of strength, the cooperative DZ Bank and WGZ Bank and Landesbank Berlin.

Arnoud Vossen said he will call to the tax authorities, the BaFin and the Bundesbank, to ask them the reasons for this silence.

Postbank, which narrowly passed the tests, said Monday it had refused to reveal its exposure because it would have been the publication of old figures dating back to late March.

According to a spokesman for Postbank, the bank's exposure to sovereign risk Portuguese accounted for 50 million euros on July 20. The Italian paper assets totaled 4.6 billion the same day. For Ireland, the figure was 300 million euros, 1.3 billion of Greece and Spain 1.2 billion.

Deutsche Bank declined to give the reason for his silence.It could say more when publishing its second quarter results Tuesday.

The U.S. Abbott Laboratories has reported quarterly earnings slightly better than expected, driven by strong growth in sales of prescription drugs, medical devices and nutritional products.

Net income for the second quarter was virtually unchanged at 1.29 billion dollars (one billion euros), or 83 cents per share.

Excluding items, earnings in the quarter rose 13.5% to $ 1.01 per share. Analysts on average expected $ 1.00 according to Thomson Reuters consensus I / B / E / S.

Worldwide sales increased 17.8% to 8.82 billion dollars, a result consistent with the consensus that almost amounted to 8.84 billion dollars.

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 Nikkei closed up 2.76% Thursday in favor of upbeat earnings outlooks from State Street, bodes well before the season results, especially as investors consider too the recent decline in spot Tokyo.

The Nikkei gained 256.09 points to 9,535.74 points and the broader TOPIX, took 19.51 points (2.32%) to 861.02 points.

State Street, one of the largest institutional investors in the world, announced that its second quarter results would exceed expectations.

This ad has supported the Japanese banking sector.Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group and Sumitomo Mitsui Financial Group jumped 3.38%, respectively, to 428 yen, and 2.96%, to 2,679 yen.

The optimism generated by prospects of State Street on the quality of the upcoming earnings season has also benefited the exporters.

The semiconductor equipment supplier Tokyo Electron, the specialist digital cameras Canon, the manufacturer of semiconductor Advantest, and automaker Honda Motor have thus gained between 3.3 and 6.03%.

Societe Generale announced Thursday that entered into exclusive negotiations to sell its Belgian subsidiary ECS group Econocom.

The offer values the shares ECS 210 million (including dividend for 2009 due to the seller), of which 30 million would be financed by a share issue underwritten by Econocom SocGen.

After the transaction, Societe Generale would become a shareholder of Econocom by 9%.

ECS specializes in the management and piloting information systems.Present in 17 countries including Western Europe and East, Morocco, the United States and China, employing over 1,500 people in 2009 and achieved a turnover of 840 million Euro.

"This will allow the new entity to make a breakthrough in the IT services market concentration, where size is a strategic issue," said the SocGen said in a statement.

Econocom, specializing in the management of IT infrastructure and telecom companies, employs 2,300 people and achieved a turnover of 759 million euros in 2009.

Completion of the transaction will be subject to approvals from competition authorities.

Sanofi-Aventis said on Wednesday the acquisition of American TargeGen for some 560 million dollars (458.5 million euros), an operation aimed at strengthening the group's positions in oncology pharmaceuticals.

TargeGen, private biopharmaceutical company, specializes in the development of small molecules for the treatment of certain forms of leukemia, lymphoma and other blood diseases.

"This acquisition demonstrates once again our deep involvement in the field of oncology to provide patients, physicians and payors of innovative therapeutic solutions in response to the needs still unfilled," said Marc Cluzel, Vice-President Executive research and development at Sanofi-Aventis said in a statement.

The closing of the transaction should take place during the third quarter of 2010.

Under the terms of the agreement, Sanofi-Aventis will make milestone payments at various stages of development of TG101348, the main product of TargeGen.

American Airlines Continental Airlines and United Airlines (UAL) announced Monday their merger for approximately $ 3 billion to form the world's largest airline at Delta Air Lines. This fusion is done by exchange of shares with no added bonus, according to the statement released by United Airlines. Under the terms of the agreement, shareholders will receive 1.05 share of Continental United Continental title for each, valuing Continental at about $ 3 billion during Friday.

Following the merger, shareholders of United will hold approximately 55% stake in the merged entity and those of Continental 45%.The two companies expect annual synergies of about 1 to 1.2 billion by 2013 and the new company should reach an annual turnover of 29 billion dollars.

The transaction, which must still be approved by competition authorities, should be finalized in the fourth quarter of 2010. The new airline will be called United and based in Chicago. The aircraft will fly under the colors and logos of the company Continental, with the name United. The group will be led by current CEO of Continental, Jeff Smisek. Glenn Tilton, CEO of UAL will present non-executive chairman.

World number one passenger

If the merger is approved, the new company will rank first among world as a carrier of passengers to Delta Airlines.

Together, the two groups serve 370 destinations in 59 countries.They carry on board their aircraft more than 144 million passengers per year. "The two companies are complementary," last week estimated Jared Harckham, an analyst at consulting firm SH & E specialist, told AFP. "United is well positioned in the Pacific, Chicago, Washington, Denver and in California, while Continental is well established in New York, South America and the Caribbean," he stressed. The two companies had already negotiated a reconciliation two years ago, which had failed.

Since the economic crisis has reinforced the concentration scenarios in the aviation sector. The last important approximation goes back to 2008: Delta Airlines and Northwest Airlines have merged to form the current world number one.

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.