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France and Britain have ruled out Friday to share the aircraft carriers in the near future but said they were ready to pool several defense equipment including the future A400M military transport aircraft assembled by EADS.

The Defence Minister Herve Morin, who received his British counterpart Liam Fox to Paris for a bilateral meeting devoted to the weapons programs of both countries, also stressed that the French and British companies were to cooperate more and that would make Paris and London joint proposals for NATO reform.

"We hope that our cooperation is in the background the ability (for France and Great Britain, ed) to make budgetary savings," he said during a brief press briefing.

France and Britain, both facing pressures on their finances, have decided to start saving measures, particularly in the defense sector.

"It is logical to examine the issues where we can share the assets rather than acting separately," explained Liam Fox."It's a purely pragmatic."

Herve Morin said, however, that France does not plan to share aircraft carrier with Britain at this time.

A source close to the Defense Ministry told Reuters that the technical characteristics of French and British aircraft made a pooling difficult but that nothing prevented the two armed boats to share logistics.

"The sharing of an aircraft carrier would not be realistic," confirmed Liam Fox.

Herve Morin assured that Paris and London had been exploring a range of issues of cooperation and mentioned as an example the tanker and the future A400M military transport aircraft, a program led by Airbus Military, a subsidiary of European aerospace and EADS Defence.

"We look very real, capacity by size, by industrial subject matter industry, we can do, either in cooperation, or we can decide who would lead us toward interdependence," he said.

"On the tanker (tankers), the maintenance in operational condition (OLS) of the A400M, the joint naval facilities, we can move towards greater pooling."

PROPOSALS

The contract for the A400M program delay of almost four years, must be revised so that some countries like Germany and Great Britain, dissatisfied with the delivery and anxious to reduce their expenses, considering scaling back their orders .

"On the A400M, it actually makes sense, then we have budgetary constraints, to achieve more together than separately and see where we can achieve economies of scale and use of shared assets," Liam Fox said.

Both ministers have not detailed how this sharing could take place.France has ordered 50 A400M while Great Britain could reduce its order for 25 aircraft to 22.

EADS has signed an agreement in March with the seven member countries of NATO to the origin of the A400M, which allows them to cancel up to 10 aircraft from the total 180 aircraft ordered.

Herve Morin also argues that he had discussed a reform of NATO with Liam Fox.

"France and Great Britain are the desire for a reform of the alliance with a reduction of bureaucracy, increased financial control, reduced staffs and physical footprints" he said before adding that France and Great Britain would submit proposals for savings in the next NATO summit in Lisbon in November.

The Minister also invited the French and British companies to enter into partnerships and alliances.

"We need to redefine a number of edges that we may not have the same research centers on both sides of the Channel '," he pleaded.

Safran will decide in the coming days to make a bid on Zodiac and, where appropriate, offer a significant premium to shareholders of the aerospace supplier, said Monday the Tribune, citing inside sources.

No hostile bid will be made, the newspaper said, while the offensive Saffron comes a month after an initial rejection of the leaders of the Zodiac.

"Considering that we have more than one in two chance, we'll go, if it has less than one in two chance, wait. This folder will always feel in six months a year," told the newspaper an internal source of saffron.

A spokesman declined to comment Safran information immediately.A spokesman declined to comment Zodiac.

Around 11:25, the action was progressing Zodiac 13.01% to 49 euros on the Paris Stock Exchange after reaching a high of 53.4 euros earlier in the morning.At the same time, Saffron retreated 1.66% to 19.01 euros.

Saffron is able to offer a premium of 30-40% compared to the current course, says the Tribune, the equivalent of the highest historic title in 2007, to 58 euros.

Safran is ready to bring the family shareholders of Zodiac in its capital, the newspaper said, which would dilute the share of the state, now a shareholder group to 30%.

Citing "multiple sources," the newspaper wrote that the family Domange shareholder Zodiac up 9.28%, is not ready to sell, unlike the Peugeot family (5% of capital) who would be willing to cede Units.

Safran will do this for an offer to allow shareholders to retain the family tax benefit they have obtained by signing a pact Dutreil "six years ago and through which they receive a tax exemption on capital of 75%.

In prior postings to the families, Safran said his project is an acquisition of Zodiac, but that it could be achieved by exchange of securities and merger in order to preserve the fiscal pact, The Tribune wrote.

Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) has agreed to sell nearly 2.4 billion euros of its majority stake in its subsidiary WorldPay payment systems to two private equity funds, the latest step in its restructuring plan .

After Friday increased its quarterly results, RBS said it would sell 80% of its business Global Merchant Services, which oversees WorldPay to Advent International and Bain Capital in a transaction valuing the company up to 2.03 billion pounds (2.4 billion euros).

Advent and Bain were in exclusive talks for this operation since late July, had said last month a source close to the matter.Analysts had estimated the amount of the transaction between two and 2.5 billion pounds.

The two companies capital that they are looking to develop activities WorldPay and added that they could conclude other acquisitions.

RBS will however keep a stake of about 20% in WorldPay.The added value generated by this transaction would be approximately 850 million pounds and increase the solvency ratio "core Tier 1" bank by about 30 basis points, the bank said.

"A NEW IMPORTANT STEP"

RBS will receive an initial cash payment of £ 1.7 billion once the deal is finalized and could obtain additional 200 million depending on performance WorldPay.

"The sale of Global Merchant Services is a new milestone in the restructuring program the company," said chief financial officer, Bruce Van Saun, in a statement.

Around 4:45 p.m. GMT, RBS yielded 0.38%, to 51.8 pence in London Stock Exchange, outperforming the Stoxx 600 index, however, brings together the main European banking stocks, which retreated at the same time by 0.74%.

This occurs after the Wednesday of the sale of 318 branches RBS UK counterpart Santander for about 1.65 billion pounds.

Before announcing the sale of WorldPay, the bank reported Friday in an increased profit in the second quarter due to recovery of its loan portfolio and improved its net interest margin, while bad debts Ireland remain problematic.

Several European banks such as HSBC, BNP Paribas and Barclays, have reported strong results this week in favor of a reduction in expenses related to bad debts, but some investors are questioning their prospects.

"THE PERFORMANCE IS A LITTLE LIGHT GBM"

RBS, for its part reported an operating profit of 869 million pounds for the quarter ended June 30, after a profit of 713 million in the first quarter.

The retail banking and commercial banking at RBS have seen their net banking income increased during the quarter but the division of investment bank GBM has had difficult times with a 31% drop in GDP over the first quarter.

"The performance of the GBM is a bit light, but the plus side, the British retail banking seems to be doing well," said Joseph Dickerson, an analyst at London brokerage firm Execution.

RBS said it had seen no return of the investment bank in July, which is fueling fears that the sector does not meet the expectations throughout the year if the soft trend in May and June is confirmed.

"July is generally consistent with the trend of the previous two months," said Stephen Hester. "If customers, uncertain, remain on the sidelines, there is less money in the investment bank."

Impairment losses accounted for 2.49 billion pounds in the second quarter, against 2.68 billion in the first.Excluding the gain on the recovery of its own debt, the bank posted a net income of 250 million pounds, down from the first three months of the year.

The U.S. stocks have ended without major trend Wednesday as investors wondering about the tone set by the Fed in the minutes of the last meeting of its Monetary Policy Committee.

The Federal Reserve said that its members should be prepared to adopt new measures to support the economy if the environment deteriorates.

See Fed talk about slowing down and hear that she may have to provide more support and cash undoubtedly shaken the markets, "said Bruce Zaro, chief investment strategist for Delta Global Advisors.

The Dow Jones, which includes the thirty most important values of American industry, was up 0.04% to 10.366.72 points, the S & P 500 index fund managers, dropped 0.02% to 1095.17 points.

The Nasdaq's side showed signs of resistance, clinching 0.35% to 2224.84 points, thanks to technology, supported by better than expected results released Tuesday by Intel. The title of the Informatics Group closed up 1.67% to 21.36 dollars.

Investors have also learned the consequences of the publication of statistics showing that business inventories had risen less sharply than expected in the United States in May while sales fell for the first time since March 2009.

The S & P showing variations of values related to consumption has dropped 0.54%.Abercrombie & Fitch has lost 0.83% to 35.93 dollars while JCPenney yielded 0.86% to 22.99 dollars.

The bank has also been the subject of intense clearances pending the results of resistance testing is suffered by 91 European banks.

The KBW index of sectoral sector fell 1.61%.

A reversal of the trend, GlaxoSmithKline closed up 1.76% to 36.35 dollars after the positive vote from the Food and Drug Administration on a diabetic, developed by the laboratory.

Business start-ups have increased by 1.0% in June to sign up 43.2% over 12 months, according to figures released Tuesday by the INSEE.

In June, the INSEE counted 24,182 new businesses in seasonally adjusted data (+18.4%), a figure which rises to 50,508 by counting the self-entrepreneurs, the figures for the latter being in the raw data.

The lower number of new self-entrepreneurs in June was offset by higher self-creations out contractors, "said INSEE in its statement.

In May, the number of new non-auto business had increased by 2.7% to 20,426.Including these, INSEE had counted 50,021 designs.

Year over year the last three months, the cumulative number of creations in the second quarter 2010 was up slightly compared to second quarter 2009 (+2.1%). The sectors that contribute most to this increase were the construction and industry, noted INSEE.

In the first six months of the year there are 200,313 requests for creations under the self-contractor.

The statute, which simplifies administrative procedures and is fiscally advantageous, has attracted 320,000 people its first year and the Secretary of State for Trade Herve Novelli in hopes as many this year.

The release can be found at www.insee.fr

The British oil giant BP has already spent 1,250 billion dollars trying to contain the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, "he said Monday, indicating also be collected Saturday a total of 10,500 barrels after the installation of a funnel flight.

Between 3 and 5 June, BP and 16,600 barrels of oil collected with this new device.

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The amount advanced by the group does not include $ 360 million promised for the construction of artificial islands to Louisiana, he said.

"The optimization (device) continues and we hope to improve the collection in the coming days, but it will be some days yet before we can evaluate the success of this attempt at containment," BP said in a statement.

BP also said it was too early to quantify the total costs of the oil spill caused by the explosion late April of the platform Deepwater Horizon, in which 11 employees were killed.