the art -- premium. the rba does nothing. the aussie dollar surges higher. imf payments loom large. just two days until greece is scheduled to make a 450 million euro payment to the international monetary fund. the things we will be talking about ahead of the open. futures markets a little bit higher. we all get a higher open and with that is manus cranny. manus: the whole discussion is this -- the finance minister in greece going to the u.s. and ushering the imf that it will make -- assuring the imf that it will make its payment. it owes them another 9 billion. you what to make sure you are onside with the imf. everybody else can probably take a secondary position.

by the way, the greeks are actually accusing the germans of 279 billion euros worth of war reparations. we will be back on a short-term basis. we can see how the dax actually opens. it has not traded as of yet. we may have a little bit of news on commerce bank. what is driving the u.k. market this morning? the miners all trading higher. iag down by 4%. mr. dudley in the u.s. talking about the shallow takeoff. healthy sentiment in equity markets. they have a consistent vote on the fomc.

there is a 33% premium in the six euros on the fedex bid. hotel at 1.5%. raising the stock to outperform. they set a target at 55 euros. 46.51 is where we are now. up 1.32%. this is a stock that takes all of the boxes. air france is down 2% at eight .24 euros -- 8.24 euros. more airstrikes to come on the eighth and ninth and 16th of april. let's see how the tnt deal opens up. jon: let's talk about the deal

of the morning. fedex agrees to buy tnt express 48 euros a share, that comes up to 4.4 billion euros in total. caroline hyde has been following the story and talking to a senior executive. let's head straight to the details. caroline: david being is who we spoke to and he was really talking about how they are bringing together two very strong brands that do not actually overlap too much. they are not worried about regulatory approval. you have the united states on one side fedex is very strong in air cargo. on the other side you have the european band, very strong on the ground. they say this is complementary. they are not worried about regulatory approval. this is where it breaks down, eight euros a share is a one third premium.

expect shares to jump about 30% on the open. expanding into europe has been a key pillar of growth. he said in 2012 they wanted to boost profit by $1.7 billion. cast your mind back to two years ago, january 2013. the last time tnt express was under the m&a microscope the deal unraveled. it was under the ups looking to buy tnt express and regulators didn't like it or it they thought it would be anticompetitive that there would be too little open competition. you would be just left with ups or dhl. they said fedex is bringing in more come petition and they will add a third player to the market rather than reduce competition. they feel they should get any regulatory approval and should have the deal done by the first

half of 2016. overall, this is a deal that they feel would build the brands. david being told me that we would not seek large-scale job cuts across the board but tnt express have had four straight years of profits declining. how will they turn us around? where will they be coming from the system? how will they tackle this reducing prices for parcels? competition hurting tnt, their own chief executive saying in february we have adverse trading conditions, 2015 will be challenging. how will fedex be able to turn the ship around. jon: $4.8 billion, that is a lot of money. $6 billion is considerably more money, what fedex would have paid one year ago.

let's get an investor's take on this. james, dare i say, this could be a bet on europe. if you are a u.s. company with a lot of cash and you look at the european corporate's, they got cheaper. guest: it is absolutely euro-dollar, anyone in dollars will be looking at key opportunities around the world. secondly the overall cheapness of equities for corporations. three courses of european companies currently have an excessive cash flow in excess of their 10 year bond yields. this means from a corporate buying point of view it is really cheap to buy equity. the third issue is one of consolidation and opportunity. in the sector here, the things about the ups, they have done

extremely well through the downturn and have relatively low capital requirements but high incremental free cash flow on the money they do invest. these are classic buying opportunities. jon: when you look at the trades going in european markets. it is easy to be bullish on bonds, that is a different commitment. from what you are seeing here this has been an ugly sector in the last couple years. is this a turning point? guest: i do think you have to buy when everything looks gloomy and despond it. -- despondent. one looks at one of the underlying numbers coming out of europe and they are on an improving trend. the rest of europe has real signs that there is a turnaround underway. jon: when you look at u.s.

corporate, a rough quarter for u.s. data. i look at the surprise indexes of the u.s. versus europe europe beating a low bar and the u.s. missing a high bar. is that still the story? guest: what worries me about the u.s. is the percentage to which corporate earnings have been mashed out. they are buying back their share and not increasing operational earnings just increasing operational earnings-per-share by shrieking the share base. that ultimately means they are investing lest in building stronger long-term businesses. in europe, we have a corporate culture beginning to come into shallow focus. jon: when you look at the noise out of the federal reserve william dudley talking that the rate path will be shallow. how unfortunate is that?

guest: what they are actually doing and how are they taking action? the third issue is the extent to which the fed thinks about long-term implications of the global economy in determining how it should move. i think the needle is moving more against the previous consensus. jon: there is some ugly data in the u.s. equity markets pushing high, equity data in europe also pushing high. it is the minus leading the gains. james bevan will stay with us as we head to the break. a picture of the markets on the screen. some data is out this hour. a reading of spanish services pmi.

followed by the same out of italy, 30 minutes later. the all important services reading at 9:30 a.m. u.k. time. the yanis guarantee, promising christine lagarde that you will see every penny of that 450 million euro payment this week. how long can the nation stay afloat?

jon: good morning and welcome

back. 12 minutes into the trading in europe. the big deal of the morning, tnt express and fedex. they were agreed to by 44.4 billion euros. there is the stock right there, climbing almost 30% higher. 7.80 is the share price. a decent premium offered by fedex for the deal. we have to get back to greece. we talk about it every day. a busy month for greece, half a billion euros due to the imf on thursday. the finance minister yanis has assured christine lagarde that greece will make its debt payment by the due date. hans nichols follows this very closely and joins us with the latest. what is the government saying?

varoufakis was just an d.c. where does the money come from? it has come down to this. hans: they do have the ability to juggle some money internally for the first part of the month. the tax receipts they say are up, even though they were down in january and february for a total of 900 million euros, when you look at what came out of the meeting with madame lagarde a clear assurance to make that debt payment to the imf. they also talked about ways they can strengthen the between greece and its creditors. mr. varoufakis had a meeting with treasury department officials and in some ways he has allies in the u.s. administration because they would like to see less austerity imposed. varoufakis is saying over the weekend, april 24 is the new date. that is when euro finance

ministers meet in rego for a meeting. that is when he was to see some kind of deal. it includes a primary surplus of 1.5%, new investments from the european surplus bank and the creation of a bad bank with nonperforming loans and crucially, something to have growth debt -- overall you mentioned 450 million on thursday and over the next six months they have 20 billion they will have to pay or rollover in addition to running the functioning's of the greek state. jon: busy month. while all of this is going on greece seems to have come up with a figure for world war ii war reparations. you have tsipras headed to russia. they don't have a list of reforms they have agreed on with creditors. those curveballs, do they mean that much to eurozone creditors? hans: the visit to moscow is

being taken with -- not a grain of salt but with a wait and see approach. it is a firm agreement come out of officials in athens. that will because for concern. germany clearly has the greek war reparations claim and they are asking for 278.8 billion euros just to give you a sense of how they calculated this. they have 450 million right mark lohan -- reichmark loan, look at the total sum and it is about 40% of germany gdp. it is the lead story and is not being well-received. jon: i imagine not. hans nichols joining us from berlin. james bevan is still with us. i took a week off and came back

to the same story. let's call 2015 the death of a deadline. do these deadlines matter anymore? guest: the real deadline will be the 20th of july when we have the ecb on payment. we have another hill to overcome in august. i would suggest that we get to the end of september and everything is still functioning. it will at least be put off for an extended period. the real challenge is, even talk about greece leaving the euro, it is more like they stay in the euro or walk away from it dead. if they stay in the euro and keep its debt it is revalued upwards, that is disastrous. i don't think this is part of greece maneuvering toward leaving. i do think there is a real risk that they say we cannot pay and are not going to pay. jon: as a government you can put

your hand on the back of your throat and pull 450 million euros, but you cannot pull billions of euros that are due in july and august, how do they find that? -- fund that? guest: they may fund this but it is much more likely they will be talking to china. there is strategic military significance of greece within europe. i don't think that greece by any means has run out of options. if we haven't got a solution by chu the 20th of july we will seriously have a big challenge. jon: some scathing criticism of the administration in the greece. what will they do when an agreement still has not been struck? guest: i think he is acting entirely properly going to russia. determining whether there are lines of credit he can access which backfill the very debt people are complaining about. the greece economy needs more

growth and i side with the greek government in arguing that austerity is the last thing that greece needs. we should give them the benefit of having reached a primary surplus. their current income exceeds their current outgoing. jon: james bevan will stay with us. everybody talking to greece, we will use the spanish example. the spanish pmi numbers. 57.3. the prior reading was 56.2. a composite pmi of 66.9. they are some decent numbers out of spain. up next we will bring it back here to london. how to treat the most uncertain election in a generation. james bevan is a greater man than i and will discuss that. ♪

jon: let's bring you up to speed with some top stories. samsung profits beat estimates today. this friday, the company will debut its new galaxy s six model to luer back buyers -- lure back buyers. the bridgewater associate is said to have gained 14% through

march. that is according to a person familiar. it was fueled by a bet against the euro. george osborne will hit back at labour claims that his policies have made families worse off. the two main parties continue to clash on tax plan. i want to keep it on the u.k. election because the polls still show the two parties in a dead heat. james bevan is still with us. a dead heat. you're putting your neck on the line, a conservative whin? guest: it is my expectation that cameron's personal popularity will take him over the line ahead of labour. jon: what am i buying? guest: if the tory party remains in power, that some of the builders like barks group and some of the banks like barclays

and one looks at the wealth managers one also looks at companies -- jon: is it as simple as that? guest: i think that all of those companies have a much more difficult time if labour wins. contracts will be the beneficiary. i depend on companies like -- jon: when does sterling wake up and realize it is a tight election? guest: i think the pound should be relatively weak from here. i think that if labour wins the pound begins to benefit. that is because the bank of england will tighten earlier. it will support the pound and the bank of england will tighten earlier because fiscal policy will be looser. jon: they will react that quickly? guest: it's all due to the project three -- trajectory and

expectations. i do think the market will rise more quickly than the bank wants to move. but these are the interbank rates rather than the official rates. jon: talk to me about the current count in this country. guest: we are very dependent on running the current count deficit. we have a significant reliance on foreign investment. these are significant numbers and argue for a relative weakness of the pound and are a risky guilt market. jon: what does the weakness in the pound look like? $1.4? guest: i think we. will see a lot of progress in the euro they are meeting to get the house back in order. they very clearly demonstrate -- to the viewers who are not familiar with what pmi means, anything above 50 means we are in a state of expansion. jon: i bring you back to the

u.k. and i look at the situation in the moment, tony blair and the press saying the tories are the risk to the economy because of the referendum. the tories are saying that labour are the risk to the economy. what would you be more worried about? guest: i certainly worry if the pound were to leave for the euro, there would be a world of difference and mr. cameron saying there will be a referendum. i think when all is said and done, when the arguments are put on the table people come very a wear of the potential cost for british economy leaving the eu not the single currency for the u.k., only to do with being part of the eu, i would say the majority of people say let's stay. jon: big thanks. james bevan, still to come. we talk fx with jeffrey.

we will talk where it is headed after the break. for now, 30 minutes into the trading session. rallying across much of europe. the dax up almost 1%. the market after the break. ♪

jon: welcome back. we are a bloomberg's european headquarters in london. this is how things are shaping up. it is a picture of the markets. the energy companies gaining. the dax up. back through at 12,000 points. the week payroll data. they struck equity markets. we have great corporate stories. caroline: it has to be the deal

stealing headlines. it is up 31%. we have not seen the move since the last time. last time, it was ups offering a 60% premium. this time, it comes from fedex and it is 33%. one third. they are offering eight euros a share. it is interesting. will they get it through regulatory hurdles? i spoke to the fedex president earlier and he said it is better for competition to bring together the u.s. and european brands. many talk about post, a stakeholder.

they got the awards. on the downside, a big move. iag is the owner of british airways and is down almost 2% on a note from jpmorgan. they have key flag carriers. they have issues of the unrelenting competition. >> they showed the overweight and they are overweight with shares dipping lower. jon: thank you.

let's take you to the market with rarity. rba did nothing. they kept it in the market. up 1.2% for you. the senior strategist is saying the jaw bone is not working. >> they are trying to understand or appreciate the currency and the rates. they are incompatible with each other. in that language, they have tweaked it and the aussie has fallen a bit. we think they will move again. >> you look at the big exports and iron ore collapsing.

how much lower does it go? >> last week, we had china and it will last 10 minutes. it is pointing to a softer performance. >> the last couple of weeks have the strong dollar. the fed will shake this off. all of a sudden, -- >> they are being forced to care more than what they are comfortable with. if we look at what the plots hinted at and we see the minutes with comprehensive packages

they have taken a burden right now and even if it is 1% and the equivalent of one basis point, that is low. we had a big move in the dollar. we will see what the u.s. economy is capable of accommodating right now. >> what is the outlook? it will be much more shallow than they thought a year ago. >> 25 basis points and heading to q4 it will be special. there is the dollar strengthening from here. maybe the fed will reassess.

there is sensitivity developing. there is a sensitivity. you have to take that into account. >> dare i say there is a disagreement? he is saying, i cannot predict that and you have dudley saying it will be shallow. they will preach data dependency . >> we have seen that in the u.k. how can you be negative ahead? so, i think that is what the fed needs to look at. show me the data and i will show you the rate cut.

>> i show you the data and we are going to hike and not going to hike. >> you cannot justify rates. the fed is hamstrung. i see the argument, in terms of moving away and the investment labor market. it will have to be a condition in normalization. the technicals are zero-bound. >> it is not all about the data. it is about politics. very simply, when do i wake up

and the sterling falls out of bed? >> it determines the outcome. most clients cannot pin the scenario on them. >> in the case of a political tendency, it is moving around. how do the two offset each other? that is where there is a struggle for consensus. if there is clear and present danger it is unequivocally negative. >> you have the particular poll that said we are ahead. what does the event look like?

everyone says it is uncertain and sterling-negative. nobody knows what it looks like. >> we do not have the event because people are learning a lesson from last year. people are worried. look at cable and the negativity priced. you get the data out of the wind. the referendum is up the horizon. we take a p\oll that hints at an outcome and gets everyone to. >> year-end target for sterling. >> cable hovering around 150.

still slightly below that. >> negatives have to the pushed back. >> you keep hitting it and things get more new ones. how do things play out? >> 105 or one over four -- or 104. there is a strong valuations case for buying european assets. what is the sting for the german account? e-voting itself -- evolving itself without a comprehensive solution. is it enough to make a different with valuations and structural issues? i'm not saying we are going to

get a currency union. >> we talk about the election and the sterling. i look at europe and the euro. >> they started and there is going to be a grexit pending. you will see it go the wrong way and it may have to revisit. >> thank you for joining us this morning. we had to the break and a little bit of a comeback. $57 a barrel and down 1%. we will talk the oil market and

get the latest on the hurdle that remains for the nuclear deal. stay tuned for that.

jon: i am jonathan ferro. but ring you up this deed falls -- let's bring you up to speed. the trial and failing to acquire the company.

it is a 33% premium on your screen. it is climbing 30%. samsung profit beats estimates. this is the new galaxy. it is another model to try to leeward back buyers. paying off so far, the bridgewater associates through march. according to a person familiar it was fueled by a person familiar with the euro. they found agreement on the agreement and a framework remains. they say the timing of sanctions is still under negotiations. we are joined now will stop --

we are joined now. how has the nuclear statement been received? jon: -- >> the reception they got was positive. people are celebrating and sharing. they are happy. there have been some here and not enough of them disagree about the semantics. there is the strongest indication of hope. i think that most people think a final we deal will be reached. >> they weren't celebrating with

the turkish president in iran. >> that is obviously boring. it is an important business -- visit. they are trying to increase the bilateral trade by the end of this year. it is how both countries are approaching. they are on polar ends of the political spectrum. i do not doubt that they are going to be disgusted. the economic ties like that have serious impacts on -- won't let that have serious impacts.

jon: a big thanks. possible sanctions relief is a big factor. analysts are divided on where the price of oil is heading. many were a dollar apart. is it anyone's guess, six months out? geopolitics, iran, nigeria. where do i begin. what does it mean? >> the market will be flooded with iranian oil. oil tankers are waiting to put oil on the market. on the other hand, you have stockpiles as high as ever.

the oil has nowhere to go. it may be changed in the future. you have the longer-term effects and the arab spring. you have the negotiations going on. >> the geopolitical risk premium, look at it. >> it has volatilities and it is increasingly insecure. it is difficult and the insurgency is a shiite

insurgency. the border is the eastern provinces. they are reacting nervously. >> this disrupts oil production. >> volatility finds a lot of noise. let's caught -- let's cut through the noise. nothing has really changed. >> we should not underestimate the gain in efficiency. production has not been growing as much as. a lot of geologists and technology assistance say that

we can do much more production out of that. it is likely to come down and reduce the pressure for the oil price to come up again. jon: thank you for joining us. we had spanish pmi. spanish data improves. and then, the french data does not. the survey is 52.8. the survey is 52.0. more disappointing data out of france. they seem to be shrugging everything off. the dax is up. after the break, we will bring you some final four with guy johnson.

jon: good morning and welcome. the pulse is coming up and we are joined by the host. the data out of europe is there a story to be told? guy: there is a story. bad news for greece and good news for spain. it continues to get stronger and stronger and the spanish recovery gains. we are starting to gain

traction. you see it for another term and that is really bad news for greece. if spain can do it, why can't the greeks? they are looking and saying, this guy can do it. why can't you? >> we have seen purchasing to get the tax and version. -- the tax inversion. guy: you point it out to me and this looks cheap. it looks cheap. six month ago, it would've cost you -- jon: 1.2m in dollars . things are starting to improve. guy: the merger makes sense. there are a few concerns about the regulatory story. they seem unconcerned. the question is, are european

equities cheap? we are seeing recoveries. jon: the politics show is coming up. guy: the top for me is blair. he will come out and say, business, you have it wrong and you should be worried about the referendum story. this will be a problem down the road. blair and miliband come from different parts of the party. jon: blair on the campaign trail. guy: if he can talk to business that will not hurt. if he can unite the party, that will not hurt. he comes with political baggage. they have not seen eye-to-eye. if they can make the business story work, that is interesting. jon: the final reading for march

pmi is 65.4. we had to the break and the ftse 100 is higher. good luck for the rest of your day. the pulses up next. .

guy: express from the u.s. fedex buys tnt. greece looks east ahead of tsipras' meeting. we will talk to a member of his government. the euro's starts the role. spain has strong manufacturing numbers. ♪ guy: welcome to the pulse." i am guy johnson. my colleague,