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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.

In attempting to seize the biotech Genzyme, Sanofi-Aventis hopes to enter a segment long ignored by major pharmaceutical companies, one of rare diseases.

It would appear that the giants of the industry think that investing in this field can be a good way to increase margins, complete the range of products and at least partially offset the impact of competition from generic.

Pfizer and GlaxoSmithKline have already tried the adventure but the offer from Sanofi on Genzyme – which could turn around 14.3 billion euros – would be by far the most advanced.

Genzyme is the world leader in treatments for rare diseases.He realized in 2009 a turnover of around 4.5 billion dollars from drug dealing rare inherited disorders such as Gaucher and Fabry disease.

"Genzyme has demonstrated to all that the market for rare diseases can be quite profitable," said Gary Pisano, a professor at Harvard Business School and a specialist in biotechnology.

These drugs for rare diseases, so-called "orphan" can reach astronomical prices and yet are rarely rejected by insurance companies.Cerezyme, blockbuster treating Gaucher disease developed by Genzyme, is an annual treatment cost of over $ 200,000.

This is one of the drugs most expensive in the world and represented the last year a turnover of 1.2 billion dollars.

NEW PERSPECTIVES

They are new opportunities opening up for big pharmaceutical companies that are themselves, most often, little to offer in terms of experimental medicines.

"The era of 'blockbuster' seems gone," says Kevin Gorman (Putnam Associates). "In rare diseases needs to look far the greatest."

Gaucher disease and Fabry disease are characterized by an enzyme deficiency that can cause irreparable damage or even lethal to the organs.Treating such diseases is not accessible to all laboratories and even the big pharmaceutical companies are not equipped to start from scratch in this field.

Design in this field of rare diseases, clinical trials, control of complex manufacturing processes and finally market drugs in highly targeted markets, this requires a special skill mastery that Genzyme to perfection.

Yet, one case of infection occurred at the site last year Genzyme Allston Landing in Boston, led to a shortage of two key drugs and led to a sharp drop in results and a diving action.

Sanofi hopes to capitalize on woes Genzyme to buy cheap.It offers 69 dollars per share, according to sources familiar with the matter, much less than the $ 80 where work is changing before disorders occur manufacturing end of 2008.

According to sources, it is unlikely that Genzyme accepts less than 80 dollars per share. This can be explained by the fact that Genzyme is an asset as rare as the diseases it treats.

It is not likely to be subject to generic competition soon.It has also more than 20 years of experience in the relationship with patient groups in the organization of clinical trials and reimbursement management and regulatory issues.

NOT EASY TO COPY

"The reasons why large groups are eyeing this segment reduced threat of generic products, products that can be expanded to other areas and prices," said Dominic Valder, an analyst at Evolution Securities.

Traditionally, the big pharmaceutical companies focus on drugs prescribed by GPs in a large population of patients with chronic conditions like diabetes, depression, ulcers or cholesterol is too high.

These medicines are made from molecules that can easily replicate génériquiers.

The biotech drugs are on the contrary from protein complex. They are prescribed by specialists for patients in small numbers. They are not easy to copy.

Some heavyweights pharmacy try their luck but so timidly.For Patrick Vallance, head of research at Glaxo, the strategy aims to improve the returns to research and development focusing on areas where the probability of success are greatest.

Glaxo has taken a stake in the Japanese and JCR Pharmaceuticals has entered into an alliance with privately held Prosensa, leading to the launch of a Phase III clinical trial in the second half and bearing on Duchenne muscular dystrophy.

Pfizer has acquired worldwide rights to an experimental treatment for Gaucher disease developed by Protalix BioTherapeutics, which if approved, would compete with Genzyme's Cerezyme.

The Franco-Dutch Unibail-Rodamco, faced with a lackluster economic environment, will make the cash to shareholders to try to offset the stagnation of its results.

The leading European commercial real estate offers and distribute 1.8 billion euros in cash to shareholders, or 20 euros per share in respect of a return of capital, "he said Wednesday in release.

This operation, which takes the form of a refund procedure premium contribution, roughly the amount of sales, net of acquisitions made since the merger in 2007 between Unibail and Rodamco, the company said.

Unibail-Rodamco has sold four billion euros of assets since the merger and purchased 2.4 billion euros.

The transaction will be subject to an extraordinary general meeting on September 8 for a payment on October 12 and will be funded by four billion euros in credit lines.

Meanwhile, the company said it benefited from renewed investor interest in quality real estate assets to accelerate asset sales and further focus on its biggest shopping malls.

In seven months, Unibail-Rodamco has sold 1.2 billion euros of assets, with an average premium of 9% compared to their appraised values.It plans to sell another 500 million by the end of the year and 2.5 billion by 2012, the Netherlands, but also in France, Spain and Scandinavia.

The land group aims to reduce the number of shopping centers from 95 to 60 by 2012.

NO IMPROVEMENT FOR HIGH

This strategy of refocusing the group on its greatest asset and most cost reflects the uncertainty about the future growth and household consumption.

"I see no reason for a big improvement in overall consumption, but our schools should do better," said Guillaume Poitrinal, CEO, a few journalists."I'm not optimistic about the economic situation in France, but our particular positioning can help us gain market share," he added.

Some analysts also see it as an uncertainty about the continued recovery in property prices.

"Having to pay a special dividend and accelerate disposals may mean that the company does not believe too much in pursuit of the rising property market," commented one of them, who would not be identified.

The company has not yet abandoned its development projects and plans to invest 1.5 billion euros by 2015 to modernize its existing facilities and 5.7 billion for new projects, of which 1.3 billion are actually incurred.He did not rule out further acquisitions.

After the transaction, Unibail will remain the land the least indebted in Europe with a debt ratio increased from 31% to 40%.

Standard & Poor's revised after the announcement, his outlook on the company, which went from stable to negative, while confirming her an "A" long term "A-1 'short-term, and Fitch, which replaced Moody's at the request of the group has assigned a grade "A" long-term debt IDR (issuer default rating).

RESULTS NO SURPRISE

For the first half of 2010, Unibail-Rodamco has published a recurring earnings per share of 4.70 euros, up 0.4% in the first half of 2009, with net rental income of 624 million, down 1 6% (+0.4% at constant perimeter).

Its net asset liquidation stood at 131.00 euros per share, up 2.2% from late 2009 its assets increased by one billion euros to 23.3 billion, ending a two- year decline in the value of its assets.

According to a consensus calculated by the editor of Reuters estimates from a dozen analysts, estimates ranged to 4.51 euros for recurring earnings per share and 130.06 euros for the net asset value (NAV ).

The property has confirmed its growth target of zero to 2% of its recurring earnings per share in 2010, including the impact of capital repayment, after rising 7.1% in 2009, mainly because of low indexation of rents.

The single European property to be included in the Eurostoxx 50, with a market capitalization of 12.5 billion euros, closed up 2.79% in the Paris Bourse to 140.100 euros before the publication of these figures.

Since the beginning of the year, the security loses 8.8%, after rising 44% in 2009.

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