tv Worldwide Exchange CNBC February 25, 2014 4:00am-6:01am EST
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hello. you're now watching "worldwide exchange." i'm ross westgate. >> and i'm july ya chatterley. >> he's investigating open to selling the blackberry messaging service. >> i work with the shareholders. >> if somebody comes to me with $19 billion, i would definitely sell it. but it probably depends on what it is. >> bitcoin suffers a setback in
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its quest to gain acceptance. the exchange goes down. bankruptcy could follow. ukraine delays forming a new government until thursday. the currency slumps towards record lows. investors worry about the conditions of an imf bailout. it could include plans for devaluation. italy's prime minister wins his first confidence vote, but by just eight seats. he promises swift action to reform the economy which could including an institutional change. >> announcer: you're watching "worldwide exchange," bringing you business news from around the globe. >> all right. a warm welcome to cheese day on "worldwide exchange." >> good to have you back. >> nice to be back. a lot has been going on while i've been away. >> one or two things. the government is in trouble. >> yeah.
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>> governments being -- >> and the equity markets rally. >> still to come, we're going to be back in barcelona at the world mobile conference with two big interviews. we'll chic to shazam about warner music. >> plus, the ceo of viber speaks just weeks after being acquired by japan's rekuo on tin and for much less by what facebook paid for whatsapp. >> addressing the mobile world congress in barcelona last night, facebook's mark zuckerberg said he snapped up a bargain in whatsapp. >> i think by itself is worth $19 billion. there are very few services that reach a billion people in the world who are all incredibly valuable. >> it's extraordinary. >> incredibly valuable. >> i don't know.
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because there's also that it's just a messaging services. i can do free texting service on my mobile phone. >> my view is what a shame he didn't think to buy viber a week before because then he could have paid $3 each -- >> 42. >> 42 for whatsapp. and the difference in users is 300 million to 450 in whatsapp. i cannot wait to speak to viber's ceo and he what he thinks about this. >> do you think he's feeling a bit poor? >> i think he sold himself short. >> plenty more to come. let's get our views on what's going on in the ukraine. parliament has delayed forming a new government until thursday, this according to the speaker of the parliament. as a result -- >> investors worry about the conditions of an imf bailout. reports suggest it could issue
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demands for a currency devaluation. russia has been stepping up its criticism of ukraine's new leadership. that's why ukraine's interim president has decided to form a fresh government. this as the country's finance ministry warns it will need $35 billion in aid over the next two years. cnbc's michelle caruso cabrera is joining us now on the phone. michelle, it seems we saw over the weekend highlighted the concerns about corruption, about wealth generation at the heart of the government. do you think people in the ukraine believe the next government is going to be any different? >> that remains to be seen. so many of the former leaders are the former leaders who were being pushed forward to lead this new government. we're hearing complaints will aren't enough fresh new faces. let me tell you more about the scene here at the presidential
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palace. i actually haven't physically seen the palace yet because i've been walking for 20 minutes past the guest house, past the garage with the 120 cars, past the ostrich farm, which is not a zoo. the ostrich farm because mr. yanukovych liked to eat ostrich meat. now we're on the back approaching the palace. we were guided by an investigative journalist who are looking through these more than 10 on 0 three-ring binders that they found at the bottom of the lake on the territory here. and they've been systemically pulling them apart very gently, page by page. they're wet and very fragile. they've been putting them on the floor of the sauna of the guest house. they say they dry in about 30 minutes. then they've been photographing them and putting them on a website called yanukovychleaks.org. and already they say they've found evidence that will show
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bribery, laundering of money into secret accounts, etcetera. the journalists say they're very gratified to by looking through this stuff because they felt this was quite possibly going on, but they never had any proof. we're getting closer to the palace now. it looks absolutely grand. i know a lot of on photos have been out there and video, as well. but we are surrounded by hundreds of ukrainians who are here as tourists. the traffic to get here is enormous because they just can't believe. they had no idea that this place existed. guys. >> michelle, thank you so much for that incredible, incredible scenes there. we'll catch up with michelle later on in the show. martin yen joins us now. martin, if we look at the situation in ukraine, if we look at ukrainian assets, we have the stock market up more than 25% in the last few days, do you think some of this optimism that we're
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seeing here is justified or should investors be more cautious? >> compared to last week, the situation looks better. that some hope of the solution to the crisis. but, of course, a lot still has to happen. there has to be -- between russia and the european union and the imf has to get involved. and the economy is still very weak. so there's a lot of question marks, a lot of risks. i guess compared to last week, things look better. >> martin, you know, there are issues here and the biggest problem is separatism and whether the country splits in two. what other risks of ukraine overspilling? what are the risks for emerging markets in the neighborhood? >> well, the big riske would be if russia gets involved or more aggressively, diplomatically.
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i mean, the role of russia is very important here. at some point, the russian market could be affected. that's the thing that russia does in the ukraine. they put the relationship with the west at risk, these kind of developments could make the market in russia suffer. at the same time, i guess the other neighbors to the west, they could suffer through trades flows, but the particularly because of portfolio flows, still positioned in ukraine, for instance. if there would be a default or people have to sell at this stage, that could mean that there's no outflows for money markets. there is some risk, but at the same time, this ukraine crisis has been there for a while. so not really a shock effect any more, so likely for the coming weeks and months. >> what about the risk of devaluation? there's a risk that if we get an imf program, it means big
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devalation of the currency. do you go along with that? >> yeah. it's one of the most vulnerable currencies in the world, no prospects for growth, political risk, of course, very high. so, yeah, the currency could be devalued. probably as part of an imf package, there might be the demand to let the currency go just to give the economy some air. and a weaker currency could put pressure on other emerging currencies, but it depends very much on the environment where we would be in at that point. currently compared to a few weeks ago, the emerging market environment is a bit calmer. so maybe the markets could handle this a bit better. >> martin, on that point about emerging markets being calmer, across the world we've got issues in ukraine, venezuela, peru's government is under pressure last night. the egyptian government yesterday resigning.
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why aept actually are markets so calm and is this a signal to investors that this is time to get into it and dip your toes back into emerging markets here? >> yes, it is a question. i struggle believing markets are so calm. there are a lot of problems. there's political risk in a growing group of countries. economic growth is still deteriorating. increasing concerns about china, which i think in the end is the biggest risk for emerging markets. so all in all, emerging markets look like that. this is how it goes. there has been a steep correction in the proceeding quarter. at some point, valuations are attractive enough, at least, for markets to stabilize. but for the coming months, it's good. so i would certainly not say that this relatively calm is a reason to start buying. >> so the message there is not yet. martin young, thank you so much for ing investigate management.
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now, mateo renzi wins a confidence vote in a session lasting over ten hours. he said the economic change would be real, concrete and immediate. the action, though, from senators was mixed. >> translator: we will see. there are a lot of discussions. but the most relevant issue is that renzi didn't refer to financial cover to fund all of his beautiful ideas. >> we could share in this renovation for a more constructive opposition. >> it's not just the composition of the government and the blatant lack of experience and the lack of technocrats, but what we saw yesterday, eight
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votes he got for the on majority, four less than prime minister letta. the coverage is suggesting. >> 6/3 decliners versus advancers. the ftse yesterday just some 54 points shy of the all-time high. lower today, down 34 points. 90 points away from that. xetra dax is down 0.3%. the cac 40 down 0.5% and the ftse mib is currently off 0.3%, as well. the s&p last night closing a point off that. we had that interday record high, of course. take a look and break this down with some of the individual stories we're looking at this
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morning. and where we stand with bond markets. 2.73% is where we stand. we're, of course, looking ahead to yellen's testimony on thursday, as well. yields in italy, a little higher. still down near those early 2006 levels, as well. on the currency markets, 102.82 on friday's three-week high. 1.3773 is the high for euro/dollar since the 2nd of january, we're just below that at the moment, 1.3751. and sterling, still off relative highs. that is where we stand in european trade. sixuan has the update out of singapore. >> thank you, ross. look at china markets. they underperformed at the pboc off by about 16 billion ifo
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agreement to drain liquidity from the markets. now it's expecting the central bank to drain energy from the yen. 49 of them are listed on the tech sent rick china. first about 80% last year and 19% year-to-date with an average p/e ratio at 70 times. meanwhile, the hang seng index in hong kong lost ground in late trade, down by 0.3%. heavyweight hsbc accounts for 15% of the total market cap fell 2.7% after an earnings miss. seoul shares climbed up 0.8%. australia ended marginally lower than india's sensex. action is trading higher by a modest 0.2%.
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as with some individual performers, softbank shares jumped to the highest level in the month on a report that the company is seeking to buy a stake in limecorp, which is a mobile messaging service controlled by south korea's neighbor. neighbors surged over 7% in south korea. profit in place was not the worst performing stocks in china, but they remained as a major concern among investors and that may impose more curbs. industrial bank confirmed late yesterday that it had halted financing for the real estate counters pending profit related loans that are likely to come out by the end of march. so on we'll be keeping watch on that front. back to you. >> sixuan, thank you. catch you later. set to come on the show, $90 billion. how much could that raise? >> the ceo told cnbc exclusively, next. [ male announcer ] these days, a small business can save by sharing.
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speculation of a possible bankruptcy filing. earlier this month, mt. gox, the best known bitcoin trading marketplace halted withdraws after detecting what it called unusual activity. on sunday, the ceo resigned from the bitcoin foundation and industry advocate. several other bitcoin exchanges have released joint statements. there's an alert today cautioning investors on trading bitcoin's site if they're having trouble redeeming their digital currency. jumping into china head first on the social network in simplified chinese as it looks to expand in the country's biggest internet population. until now, the site was only in english. linkedin does acknowledge the issues. it will be required to revise the content. unlike facebook and twitter,
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linkedin has always been allowed to operate within china. look at how linkedin shares are trading up over 2% in the trading today, outperforming the german markets in the last few months down just over 7%. >> and facebook's ceo mark zuckerberg defended his purchase of whatsapp in barcelona. he says whatsapp is worth more than the $16 billion that the social network site actually paid. he suggests it has the ability to generate revenue. >> you can look at other messaging apps out there that already are monetizing at a level of $2 to $3 per person with pretty early efforts. i think that shows if we can do a pretty good job of helping whatsapp to grow, this will be a huge business. so even just independently, i think it's quite a good bet.
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>> we're joined now by louisa bojesen exclusively from barcelona. louisa, did he have pound signs in his eyes based on this valuation? >> he indicated that he would have pound signs in his eyes if we were to see a very large offer made for the snabt messaging system that blackberry has. but we'll have that interview in a bit. but i want to recap where we've been with blackberry over the last couple of years. because just taking you back just a couple of years, they were the pioneers in the smartphone industry. remember when they came out with their initial model, how everybody suddenly had it once they hit that enterprise market. they did very well in doing that. they incorporated the bbm, the blackberry messaging system into the hand set device. suddenly you saw this switchover into all the teenagers suddenly wanted a part of being able to instant message each other and not pay for it. so they made those inroads,
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texting became a thing of the past and since then, it's gone downhill for them because as samsung took market share, apple took on market share before that, they lost grouped, they had to get through a big restructuring phase, as well. changes to management and now they're dealing with losses of some very big contracts, very recently t-mobile angering blackberry, one of their partners came out offering the iphone -- excuse me, offering blackberry users to upgrade to an iphone for free. blackberry denied knowledge about that. they're very anchored. but let's listen in to what john chen, the ceo of blackberry, had to say to me earlier today when i asked him about what his initial thoughts were to the facebook whatsapp deal. >> i thought it was a big price. that's all i thought. >> how do you value something like blackberry messenger?
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looking at the valuations, when you take whatsapp valuation, based on that, blackberry services will be worth $3 million to $4 million. when you take viber's valuation, it would be worth $686 million. there's a big gap at how we look at instant messaging. >> well, yeah. i don't look at it that way. i know there's a lot of value. this is all very much innovative about enterprise solutions. i think the right thing to do is just to sxan, as big as possible, and then i worry about a value agdz later. >> years ago, blackberry was known as such a pioneer in the industry and since then it lost some ground to apple, some of the other players, as well. we saw some softer sales, we saw turn around from within the company. you came on board, 40% of the workforce was told that they had to leave, unfortunately.
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what is your strategy now? where are you focusing? >> first of all, i came on board the 40% leaving. but the short-term strategy is to reach back to the customer, make sure they understand our strategy, what we offer. we make money. generally cash. and invest in all the businesses like we talk about. we have a messaging business, server business, we have qnx which has been embedded. so those are all important areas to invest in. and i think growth will come from this. >> what do you think it takes to really follow through with a successful turn around like the blackberry story? what's key? >> well, the key is the customer. the key is the customer, we engage back, applying the
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technology, using the technology and, therefore, you could have a profitable business and you could invest in future innovation. there's no secret in this. >> if someone came to you now offering money for bbbm, for the messenger service, would you sell? >> well, i mean, i work with the shareholders. standard answer, right? it depends how much. if somebody comes to me about $19 billion, i would sell it. i mean, i would republic to the board to take it. but it kind of depends on what it is. >> sotd blackberry ceo there said if offered $19 billion, i would take it to shareholders and recommend it. what the viber ceo might say? that happened recently, the japanese shopping network channel taking over viber, instant messaging systems group and we're going to be speaking to the ceo of viber, talmon
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marco. that's happened in around 15 minutes' time. i will ask him whether or not that deal would make a difference with them because they were only paid $900 million to sell their group, only, quote/unquote, right? that's still a lot of money, but compared to $19 billion, well, there's a difference, right? we'll also be speaking a little later on to the ceo of shazam. this is an interesting one. i don't know if you can pick it up, but i'm hearing 10 million different techo songs standing here. with shazam, i'll be able to identify what that music is by holding up my phone and letting it analyze the music. now it's thought the music industry is getting much more involved because you can identify hits apparently by seeing what it is that they listen to, which mooufk it is that they like. so we'll be back in about 15 minutes' time and talk more about viber and instant
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messaging arena as we see it now, guys. >> while you're there, louisa, viber got, what, three bucks perusers, whatsapp got about 42 bucks peruser. why don't you see what your twitter followers are worth. >> you know what? that's a really, really good idea. except twitter hasn't been working for me while i'm here. >> yeah, you can't get a signal because there's too many phones. >> i know. i know. >> you could get up to a hundred bucks for following. see if you can get that 100 bucks peruser. >> or actually maybe i have to start paying them money. you never know. >> you have to stop paying money. stop paying money. catch you a bit later. thanks for that. full coverage of the mobile world congress in barcelona is on. cnbc.com. it's a special page.
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mwc.cnbc.com. mwc stands for mobile world congress. #mwc14 which presumably stands for mobile world congress 2014 as opposed to -- it could be a phone, it could be a car, it could be the latest f1 car from somewhere or other. still to come on this show, matteo renzi has his first confidence vote as prime minister. coming up right after the break.
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we've got the headlines from around the globe. ukraine delays form ago new government until thursday. the currency dropped to record lows as investors worry about the conditions of an imf bailout that may include demand for its valuation. >> blackberry will not back down.. the firm's ceo speaks exclusively to cnbc saying he's invested in the business.
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but would be willing to sell the messenger business. >> i work with the shareholder. standard answer, right? it depends how much. if somebody comes to me about $19 billion, i would definitely sell it. it all depends on what it is. >> more for bitcoin as the site goes down. reports quell of a major fix and worries of bankruptcy are following. italy's new prime minister wins his first confidence vote by just eight seats. he promises swift action to reform the economy and institutional change. british banks association mortgage data approval, the highest since september of 2007. they came in at 39,972 in january. that is 47,066 in december. but a decent jump upwards.
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net mortgage lending, 398 million. 289 million in december. up at session highs at 1.6681. consumer credit just up 0.1 billion in january versus 0.2 billion in december. as far as european equities are concerned, we're a little softer today. the ftse 100 yesterday was just some 60 odd points away from the all-time high. it's fallen this morning. currently down 0.5% at 6831. the xetra dax down 0.3%, cac 40 off 0.4% and the ftse mib off 0.3%, as well. >> ten-year bund trading at 2.75%. as far as italy is concerned this morning, 3.63%. >> currency markets are fairley steady. dollar/yen, 102.37. euro/dollar, 1.3750.
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1.3773 was the high we hit last wednesday, the highest since just about the year. that was january 2nd, so we call it just about the year's high, as well. sterling just picking up, 1.6681. mateo renzi, italy's new prime minister, has won his first confidence vote in a parliament session lasting just over ten hours. reaction from senators was mixed. >> there are a lot of dreams, a lot of discussions. the most relevant issue is that renzi didn't refer to financial cover to reform all his beautiful ideas. >> what he wants to introduce into politics is very important and we can somehow share in this
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innovation. be responsible and constructive opposition. >> joining us now, the head of technical asset allocations at generaly investment europe class. good morning. thank you for joining us. we lack a lot of detail as far as his reform plans are concerned. but i've been overwhelmed about some of the optimism out there. do you see this as a catalyst to re-ignite italian growth here? >> absolutely. i think the markets have given renzi a warm welcome and this could be is the real change. >> what do you think about central taxes on the interest and on bonds here? it's currently 12.5%. it could get up to 20% or 25%. is that a concern for retailers or small investors in italy? >> we don't think the ultimate number will be that high. more important, what will he do with structural reform. he's made it clear that he's running on that ticket.
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>> but you don't see that, however it comes as a message to the markets here to be less concerned about that .more concerned, perhaps, about the real economy? >> absolutely. but i think it will be small. we have less than 5%, 22% on other capital gains. so i think it will be a small amount and i don't think it's really a game changer. >> you've got inflation data out this week. very low levels kind of where we're trading around at the moment. even at these levels, it can be worse, hasn't it? >> i'm not an inflaim flagz camper. the key question is will they deliver on the primary balance, which is important? and the other more important factor is what about the level of yields? we've seen more than 7% reform to 3.5% and that's the real
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difference here. i think that's sustainability at these levels. >> okay. why are viewers going to stay down at these levels? it's going to encourage investors to keep buying this paper? >> i for one think the general level is low. we see interest rate policies everywhere from central banks. the key will be delivering structural reform. >> you don't expect more tightening? >> absolutely. i think that the current level is not the target. >> not as low as we've seen it, but deciding what we currently have. we go to 1.50, 1.40. >> we see the interim story, who is calling for through low? you actually see versus the dollar compete to gain here. what is the justification for that? >> yeah. i think that the euro is
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fundamentally strok, contrary to what many people believe. we see capital inflows into the area, quite a lot, actually, given the fact that we have quite improvement in growth. we try to ex exploit that by having a recovery fund in which we exploit that theme. >> even if we get more stimulus from mario draghi, you still see the euro rallying? >> well, we think that the euro will stay strong until we get a message for the high grade. but that will not come before late in 2014. >> so you're having to invest to offset tension, liability, the crucial issue. you mentioned the potential opportunity in investing in infrastructure debt. >> absolutely. >> talk to me about this. it's a fascinating area that perhaps we don't talk about enough. >> well, the level class, we like because there are some elements like cable and high yields. fundamentally speaking, what we've seen in the past, governments are finance
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infrastructure, banks finance. so on i think there are great opportunities for new investments. >> and do you see that domestically or more broadly in europe? >> absolutely. i think infrastructure meets globally high emerging market countries. so i think that's really something which will play well. >> you've got to hit 7%? >> i think we look at both return and so you can see what absolutely look at the risk has arrived, but the figure decided with something which is reasonable. >> and what about your view on equities here? do you expect that we can continue to value? we're talking about the prospect of the first u.s. rate hike. or we see indication of on it. is that a change in sentiment as far as the equity rallies concern? >> if we have a stronger
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backdrop, it might call on the u.s. economy. it's temporary. and that will then -- >> you said rates would go up this year? >> no. i think the markets will. >> speculate about higher rates because by then, near the end of tapering, and then, of course, the question is what's next? and the markets will start to think about it. and i think then in 2015, the first half, you will see the first hike in rates. that's the time when the dollar -- >> but it will get priced in much sooner than that? >> yeah, that's a good point. >> yes. >> nice to see you. thanks very much. >> thank you. >> thank you for joining us from generale investments. just an update on the situation unfolding in the ukraine. ukraine's interim president says that the country has delayed forming its new government until thursday. the original deadline was set for today. meanwhile, ukraine's currency
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slipping lower in today's trade as ininvestors worry about the conditions of an imf bailout. it could include demands for a currency devaluation. that was part of the negotiations going on in december, so that's the reason why that is being talked about again today. we will get back out there later in the show. michelle is there, of course. >> we will, indead. jpmorgan is reportedly planning to cut several thousand more jobs in the financial business, that on top of the 13,000 to 15,000 set to be slashed due to plunging demand in home loans. this comes as the bank's stock is close to a record high. credit suisse's ceo brady dugas and three other offices
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are set to testify at a senate panel. more than six ft officials have been probing how people are dodging taxes by pouring monies into swit bank accounts. and the man running the popular goldman sachs elevator twitter account has been revealed. he doesn't work for goldman sachs. he's a 34-year-old bond. if some chick asked me what i would do with 10 million bucks, i would ask her where the rest of my money went. so there you go. >> and apparently i did a bit of digging on this. there was a bit of an
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altercation on goldman sachs. apparently there were some existing contracts and he didn't go there. >> he said he never said in any of his posts that he was an employee. what i liked in that was -- and i don't know whether this is true or not, but a suggestion that goldman sachs put out a press release or an internal memo saying it's now facing talks again of lift. i don't know, have they banned discussion in the elevators or not? >> i think there was a period of time when they were looking for the elevator leak. anyway, anything -- >> whatever you do, don't leak anything in the elevator. >> i was going to swiftly avoid that. moving on, advertising for china's twitter like service sina corp. gained. overall earnings, though, not
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very impressive. sina struggled to barely beat analyst expectations in kwb q4 with expectations. sina shares slipped in after hours trade. have a look at shares of softback in japan and korean internet firm naver. softbank has been in talks to buy naver, a tokyo based mobile messaging service. naver denies reports it's groundless, saying it has no plans to sell. so what's next? the latest mobile messaging service line, sa cheeko kishida has the headlines. >> hi, julia. jap japan's sina decided to buy
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viber. now attention is turning to line which has 350 million users worldwide. it plans to double its revenue by delivering e-commerce and messaging services. line is preparing to go public. before facebook's deal, line had an valuation of $7.7 billion, but that valuation could skyrocket giving the parent company, naver, more options. softbank declined to comment on a possible purchase, but the price might have been too high. so all eyes are on naver's next move. julia, back to you. >> thank you. still to come, after
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louisa is in barcelona, joined by the ceo of viber. is he happy with the price he got, louisa? >> sorry, ross, i completely didn't hear any of that. it's very noisy here. >> is your next guest sore about the price he got for his company? >> that's the question. that's the big question that people want to know. my next guest, of course, being the ceo of viber. talmon marco. thank you for joining us. >> thank you for having me. >> people are asking in the studio, are you upset by the price you got for viber? >> i think the deal is fair and square. it's a good price. we're happy with the deal, we're happy with our new partner. >> so had the facebook deal happened before your deal, would you have held out? would you have said no, i want $5 billion? >> i don't know. but in retrospect, we're still very happy with the deal.
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we're happy with who we did the deal with, which is a very important part of this deal. it wasn't just about getting the highest, you know, number of dollars. it was about getting somebody we felt we could work with moving forward precisely on that point, this is a japanese shopping handle, as it were. >> it's not exactly a shopping channel. it's far more than that. if you're in the u.s., think of it as a blend between ebay and amazon. it's a marketplace and so many other things. >> so how are they going to use on your services? >> we always look at viber. when we started viber four years ago, we looked at viber as a platform, as something that we're building. we're going to build saying -- and now three years later, as we're starting to get to that critical mass in much countries, to say, okay, so we have this user base that -- for messaging,
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for voice, for video, now we're going to build it into a plat. it's exactly the same thing in japan. so you have shopping with the marketplace and you have credit cards and you have travel and you have all these other things. now moving forward, we stand a chance and we're going to be able to offer this in many other markets. >> getting back to the instant messaging, there's a lot of chat in the mobile world. how do you value companies? how do you put a price tag on companies, especially the younger companies and especially younger companies where you see a user base, as well? what are your thoughts on this, again, comparing the facebook deal to other deals that are being done? >> i think you value everything on one thing, how much somebody
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is willing to pay for it. in our case, that was $900 million. which, again, as a blend of not just price, but also the vision moving forward. it was very important for us not just to sell, but also to make sure that we still are eye to eye with the acquirer with the direction, the vision of the company. >> what do you think the next trend will be within mobile, within mobile technology? >> i think for now, messaging is at the heart of everything. we're going to see the service not just viber, but our competitors evolving into other things. >> video streaming, things like that? >> inge it would be everything riding on top of messaging. at the end of the day, it's
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something that connects everything together. we're seeing some gains in asia. we are going to see more of that. wr going to see digital content. >> congratulations on the deal. it was signed on valentine's day. >> it's very fitting. >> thank you very much, talmon marco, ceo of viber. it's a lot of money, ross. a lot of money. we'll be speaking to the ceo of shazam, coming up here in about ten minutes' time. stay with us. this is about identifying music with an app on your smartphone. we'll talk about that. >> if you hum a tune, see if it identifies it when we come back, lou. thanks for that. plenty more to come. >> given the recent mobile and tech takeovers, product
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launches, where should investors go to find the next big thing? tom mackenzy caught up with the founder of -- for investors who got into ebay and paypal early, where to put his money. >> i always believe in utilities. both those companies were utilities. i'm stuck in traffic. every person can relate to that. in terms of paypal, we have to find a way to transfer money and we did. i think greater efficiency in human life is something that's always excite to go me. it sometimes can seem rather boring, but eventually if you can create a service that makes a difference, it becomes very exciting. clearly, health care. you know, the intersection of mobile with the internet has happened and you've got great devices, you've got great networks. but you go into a hospital, you go in to see your physician,
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there's a lot of inefficiency in that system. there's a lot of money there, as well. so i think there's a big focus on health care. that's a vertical that i think a lot of people are excited about. >> really interesting points there. i want to get back out to the interview with viber's ceo. great question. has the facebook deal happened a week earlier, would you have pushed for more money? do you feel it's overvalued? >> how do you measure value? >> absolutely. do investors pay or not? >> in any m&a transaction, the seller has to get a good price and the buyer has to get a good price. >> actually, many investors feel there's a bubble being created here. >> facebook is going to take a five-year deal on this as we heard and see what happens. besides tom mackenzy checking in, we're talking about
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gadgets, as well. let's find out what louisa has been finding. >> as you can see, the mobile world congress is a vast event with some of the biggest players and some of the smaller ones all vying for attention. sony is trying to steal the headlines with its latest traabt which it claims is the thinnest in the world. it's also completely waterproof, which means you can use it in the bath. for the privacy conscious, it's the ultra secure smartphone. it comes with text and messaging services which allows you to browse the internet anonymously. and for those of you with 1980s nostalgia, there's this, the brick. it's a phone and its main
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selling point, a massive battery life of three months. >> you should have wore the moustache, as well. >> nice. moving on, still to come on the sho show. >> plenty more to come in the second hour, as well. the latest from the ukraine and the world mobile congress. see you in a few minutes. [ male announcer ] meet jill. she thought she'd feel better after seeing her doctor. and she might have if not for kari, the identity thief who stole jill's social security number to open credit cards, destroying jill's credit and her dream of retirement. every year, millions of americans just like you
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. welcome to "worldwide exchange." i'm julia charterly. >> and i'm ross westgate. >> ukraine delays forming a new government until thursday as investors worry about the conditions of an imf bailout and reports suggest demand for valuation. blackberry is not going to back down. the firm's ceo speaks exclusively to cnbc saying he's investing in the business but wouldn't refuse to sell the
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messaging service. >> if somebody comes to me about $19 billion, i would definitely sell it. i would recommend to the board to take it. but it depends on what it is. >> the site for the mt. gox exchange goes down. a major theft worries bankruptcy could follow. and italy's new prime minister wins his first confidence vote just by eight seats. he promises swift action and reform on tax cuts and constitutional change. >> announcer: you're watching "worldwide exchange," bringing you business new from around the globe. >> thanks for joining us here on this show. let me give you a look at how the markets are fairing ahead of the u.s. open today. as you can see, a bit of buoyantsy yesterday in the markets taken out towards the end of the session. right now, we're seeing the
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futures indicating lower here right now. that's 22 points as far as the dow futures are concerned. the nasdaq here around 2.8%. the s&p 500 around 3 points here in trading this morning. a mixed session that we got in the asian session. the nikkei higher, chinese markets lower. that was the theme and a bit of weakness here for the european markets, too. obviously watching what's going on in the ukraine, as well, as you heard just now. we have seen a delay in the government formations until thursday. the deadline was originally expected today. ross -- >> yes? >> a bit of a -- >> it's eight seats over the majority for renzi. >> interesting. >> let me show you where we stand with treasury yields at
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the moment. 2.7% on treasury yields. a little lower, indeed. italian yields, just mentioned that, the 3.624%. near those may 2006 lows, as well. keep your eyes on that. we've been hearing from the bank of england member saying sterling is a little higher, back up to 1 is.67 at the moment. dollar/yen, 102.34 is where we stand. on friday, a three-week high, so not far away from that. euro/dollar, not far away from the highs we've seen. 1.3773 is what we hit last wednesday, which is the highest since january 2nd. that's where we stand right now in europe. sixuan has the recap on what
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happened in asia. she, of course, is in singapore. >> thank you for that, ross. getting a boost from wall street's value, the nikkei 225 hit a 3 1/2 week high up 1.4% today. the china markets underperformed a lingering liquidity fears while the pboc offered about $16 billion of agreements to drain funds from the markets. now expect the central bank to continue weakening the yuan. the major indices took a bye in late trade. h-shares plunged down by 10% in the afternoon session while 4906 them listed. i know the index surged 80% last year and 19% year-to-date. the sell-off happened pretty quickly today. it ended down by over 4 had%. over in hong kong, the hang seng index lost round in the afternoon session. heavyweight hsbc which accounts
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for about 10% of total market cap fell 2.7% after earnings miss. elsewhere, seoul shares climbed to a one will have month high and australia ended marginally in the red and india's sensex ended higher by a modest 0.2%. japan's softbank shares jumped over 4% after a leak saying they were looking to buy a stake in line corp. that's a look out of asian markets. back to you. >> thanks for that, sish whip. have a good evening. nwc 14 is under way in barcelona. a major redesign has been unveiled by shazam. louisa is joined by the ceo in
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barcelona. hi, lou. >> yeah. and i just learned, as well, that they are muck the 20 most popular apps globally and the second most downloaded app in france. as you say, i am joined by the ceo, rick riley. great to see you. >> great to be here. >> how does it work? just in case viewers aren't familiar, how does it work? >> absolutely. people use shazam over 17 million times every day. all they do is push the button. it takes a signature of the sound waves, takes it back to our debate where we have over 30 million songs and in less than five seconds, we return a result, tell you what song you're listening to, let you buy it, share it, watch a video, get the lyrics. >> just by holding it up? >> just by pushing the butt yop, we take a snapshot, accepted it to our debate and rapidly respond a match. >> can you identify a hit by
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shazam? >> we can. we have an enormous set of data, enormous activity levels. so we can see when something is really trending what's happening. so we distribute the shazam charts which are used extensively by the record industry. >> we would see very heavy -- absolutely. >> and now we can't get rid of it, right? so the music industry has been increasingly looking to do more business with you. >> yes, yes. >> and you've already garnered some big deals? >> we have. we enguest the music as soon as it's released and we share charts and data with them. we have over 500 million shazams every month, like i mentioned. we know where those people are, the momentum, the trend, and we also want to get content from the labels, from artists, to
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make the shazam experience more engaging. we want this to be the start of an experience, not the end of an experience. >> and now you're breaking into television. >> yes. >> how is that going to work? >> the same way it works with music. you can choose tv and we will return content. the grammy awards earlier in january, 1.1 million shazams. super bowl with a shah zached 700,000 times. >> what am i shazaming? >> you get exclusive content from many of the performing artists. the super bowl, we had a fantastic timeline experience where you can go back and watch the great ads that you missed from maybe the first karp quarter. we have exclusive content from bruno mars and his halftime show. >> and i saw somewhere that, again, whether or not you can tell sma something is going to
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become a hit, that you can quickly tell around 33 -- >> yes. we can see what's trending. so we're able to become very predictive. >> that makes a big difference in the music industry. >> it does. that will help them know where to promote, where to push. we want to share more .more of that data with them. >> you mentioned to me that you're the second most downloaded app in france. >> yes. >> why the popularity places like france because places like spain, for example, what makes a country be interested? >> we had 88 million users in january, which makes us with the of the top 20 used apps in the world. weir big in france, big in germany, big in western europe. it's become one of the things people do with their smartphones.
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>> thank you very much. >> thank you. >> we're not done yet, though. we're not done because later on this afternoon on european closing bell, we will be talking to the ceo of arm mobile, this is about the which i chip manufacturing industry. we'll be talking to the ceo of qualcomm, paul jacobs, coming up just around 5:00 central european time, as well. so for now, though, that's it. i can't get that song out of my brain, though. >> what happened you doing last night, louisa? >> what was going on last night? >> i was working until way past midnight. so -- >> really? >> yes. >> what, are there any other
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telltale signs? >> we'll just leave it there, louis louisa. thank you very much and plenty more from the website, as well. still to come on the show, ukraine delays the emblemation of a new government until thursday. all the details on this developing story coming right up next. [ male announcer ] whether it takes 200,000 parts, ♪ 800,000 hours of supercomputing time, 3 million lines of code, 40,000 sets of eyes, or a million sleepless nights. whether it's building the world's most advanced satellite, the space station, or the next leap in unmanned systems. at boeing, one thing never changes. our passion to make it real. ♪ our passion to make it real. save you fifteen percent or more on car insurance.d
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you're watching "worldwide exchange." ukraine's interim president says a new government won't now be formed until thursday. italy's prime minister wins a confidence vote, but by only eight seats. and as the website goes down, worries about bankruptcy for bitcoin trading platform mount. just an update now on the situation unfolding in the ukraine. ukraine's interim president has delayed forming its new government until thursday. the original deadline was set for today. meanwhile, ukraine's currency is slipping lower as investors worry about the conditions of an
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eu/imf bailout. nicholas burr joins us now. nick, i want to go straight to the comments that we had from russia yesterday on the ukraine. they're not acknowledging that this is a legitimate government. russia had the same ways of applying pressure on the ukraine as they did three months ago, back in november when the ewe krab didn't sign this deal. why is this government going to be any more ready to resist pressure on that? >> i would say about the ukraine is let's be thankful that the blood letting has actually stopped. last woke, ukraine was certainly -- kiev was a war zone. some of these new videos were absolutely horrific. .let's just hope that this is not a taste of bad things to come. russia is absolutely fuming. russia has a number of political and economic levers which it can pull to challenge and to
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undermine this fairley dramatic westward shift in ukrainian foreign policy. and it remains to be seen how hard they are going to push. i think that the end game here is that russia doesn't believe for one second that ukraine is going to be able to get a stable government. and that the fundamental problem here is that ukraine does not have that external policy anchor. and domestic policy anchor, which are so crucial for economic reform in central and eastern europe which is lacking in the ewe crepe. but this is the first time certainly since ukraine has won independence that there's the potential to have an external policy anchor and a domestic policy anchor. but we are far from that situation. >> how long does the next
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government have to last to be able to sign an agreement with the imf and the eu and cut russia out, in a sense? >> well, there's no -- there are so many factors here, this is a race against time. this is a country which bears all the hallmarks of an old emerging market. you've got a central bank burning through its foreign exchange reserves. you have twin deficits in the order of 8% of gdp. the ukraine needs money and it needs it fast. it's very unlikely we're going to get anything like a credible policy making regime in place anytime soon. we will have a government. the question is will it be undermined by russia? >> yeah. much of the country is russian.
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that's true, but keep in mind, also, that the eastern half, which obviously is russian, has been let down by the former president. and if you use the former president with disdain. krimeia is clearly a flash point. russia doesn't need to send troops. it has its troops based there. so it is not in russia's interest to have a civil war. russian assets, the ruble in particular, have been looking extremely, extremely weak recently. and russia has to be careful how it actually proceeds. but this is a -- this is an extremely, extremely fragile and very, very -- situation. and this is simply the end of the beginning. >> balance on all sides, we leave ukraine for a second. we have had some italian auction results out.
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italy securing fresh euro era low rates. events of course in the ukraine eclipsing the dramatic rise of matteo renzi, the young prmper. renzi has won his first confidence vote in parliament lasting over ten hours. what do you think of what's going on in italy right now? there's so much optimism out there about what he can do and what he can achieve. there was a lot of promises and very little details. >> he's -- mr. renzi is hardly off to an auspicious start. he -- in the confidence vote in the senate yesterday, he won four votes less than mr. letta did. mr. renzi stands or falls by what he does and what he's able to do and what he's able to actually accomplish in the next
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hundred days. this is an -- he's -- he has -- he has presented an extremely ambitious, overly ambitious, i would say, political and economic agenda. that may, in fact, help him. he set the bar so high, he's upped the stakes that he is almost compelled to get something done. there's an awful lot of hope on this man. >> thank you so much for joining us, nick. still to come on the show, rumors of bankruptcy, one of the most recognizable bitcoin exchanges vanishes into thin hair. stay tuned.
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speaking about financial stability outside of washington. we've got home depot, macy's recording results before the opening bell today. and numbers from t-mobile u.s., toll brothers, domino's pizza and dreamworks animation. >> looking forward to those. elsewhere, there were further protests last night as venezuela's president shared a national dialogue meeting. police responded with tear gas. it's the latest in a string of anti-government protests across the country since february 12th. even at least 15 people dead and 150 injured. protests continue in thailand early this morning with gunfire and explosion certainly with anti-government -- in ba bangkok. the prime minister shinawatra targeted protesters without resigning despite growing pressure on her administration.
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>> ukraine delays forming a new government until thursday as investors worry about the conditions of an imf/eu bailout. it could include demands for devaluation. blackberry will not back down. the ceo speaks exclusively to cnbc saying he's investing in the business, but would be open to selling the messengering service. >> i work for the shareholders. standard answer, right? it depends on how much. if somebody comes to me with $19 billion, i would definitely sell it. i would recommend to the board to take it. but it all depends on what it is. bitcoin suffers another setback in its quest to gain accept wrans. the site for the mt. gox exchange goes down. major worries bankruptcy could soon follow. and italy's new prime minister wins his first confidence vote, but only just by eight seats. he's promised swift action to reform the economy with tax cuts and institutional change.
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>> announcer: you're watching "worldwide exchange," bringing you business news from around the globe. >> if you're just tuning in, thanks for joining us here on "worldwide exchange." let me give you a look at how the markets are faring ahead of the open on wall street. weakness into the end of the session yesterday and what we're seeing as far as the futures are concerned. the dow is down by around 14 points. the nasdaq still trading around 14-year highs, indicating lower by around just one point nearing trading and the s&p 500 futures lower by the around 2 points. still managing to close above that key 1850 level in particular. let me give you a look right now at what the european markets are doing here, too the. and it's lost a bit of takeback from yesterday's gains. the ftse 11 00 lower by 0.6%. the german market down by 0.4%. french market similar story, 0.4%. and italy, despite that positive
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confidence vote yesterday, losing ground by 0.3%. ross. >> and futures are coming down, as we've seen. meanwhile, private equity owned businesses like candy crush by king entertainment are flooding the market. marcus, annette is in berlin with more for us. hi, annette. >> hi, ross. actually, i'm here at the super retu return, just the who's who of the private equity firms industry. the mood is pretty good listening to the speeches. europe is certainly back on the agenda and also they are seeing opportunities in emerging markets. and, of course, united states is a topic, as well. a different kind of industry. but to talk about and also the effect of this tapering and now joined by steven klenski, who is the found ceo of new mountain
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capital. thank you very much for coming here. my first question would be on what you are hearing at the conference. so what is the hot topic your industry is discussing? >> well, i just arrived from flying through the night. so i haven't heard the conference yet. i speak tomorrow. but i think the hot topics will be about how to grow businesses, how do grow consistently, how to not get hurt if interest rates rise and just keeping the industry going. >> one of the topics, at least in the united states, is the fed tapering, i.e., rates which might rise. does that affect your business when it comes to leveraging? >> my own firm is very conser conservative on the use of leverage. we haven't used that in over half the companies that we bought and generally four times. so we won't really be affected by it. but if rates really do spike up, i think it will hurt highly levered companies. so when it comes to your business, you're saying your growing companies. but how is it really to
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actually -- to really pick the right investment and expand it? >> well, you know, we're a growth capital firm. so we pick sectors years in advance for buying a company. we have financial people on our team. we have about 100 people working in new mountain. so we take a good, solid base, but we can try to turn it into the new mountain in its industry with new products or acquisitions or anything that it needs. >> and talking united states now, which industries do you think are interesting or hard? >> well, we just bought three companies not too long ago. one of them is actually a london-based business that's revolutionizing the way global clients hire people around the world. and is a -- kind of an alternative to headhunters. one of them is in medical specialty distribution for home health care and the third is helping firms like ours and hedge funds stay with compliance with the s.e.c. rules and so those are all growth sectors. before that, databases and
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software and medical devices and information and different sort of growth missions. >> do you see a growing demand for your kind of investments looking at the banks and their scaling back on lending? >> well, you know, there's lots of still capital available even with the pressures on the banks. so i don't think there's a capital constraint on the loan market. it's always a question of being able to find a good company and having the business skills to build it. >> thank you very much for your time, steven. so, julia, you see, there's a lot of abund city of capital around to invest in private equity and also we have those equity markets rallying, which also enables them to buy a lot of things for quite a high price as we have seen in recent days. we're back to you. >> thanks, ae annette. the private inflows into emerging markets right now. relative to the outflows that we've seen from ordinary
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investments. fascinating. >> yeah. >> now, for viewers in europe, stay tuned. we will speak to david rubenstein, founder of the carlyle group. that's coming up at 2:30 cet. some of the other stories we're looking at today, as well, president obama will meet privately with house speaker john boehner at the white house. it's the first time they've done so since december 2012. neither side will say what they're going to discuss, but the meeting comes after a year when congress and the president couldn't agree on much. it will salso comes a week befo president obama's budget proposal. a record snowfall resulted in more than $1.5 billion in insured losses so far. that makes this winter one of the top five costliest since 1980.
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losses included collapsed roofs, broken pipes from freezing and car accidents. despite the brutal weather, investors say numbers are well within what investors are planned for this year. ukraine's interim president says the country has delayed forms its new government until thursday. the original deadline was for today. ukraine's currency weakened in today's trade as investors worried about the potential of an eu/imf bailout. reports suggest it could include currency for a valuation. michelle, you were still walking earlier in the show when you spoke to us to get to the palace. have you got there and what have you found? >> we finally got in. the style i would describe as
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swiss chalet/burroque, gaudy, huge. booel being guarded by a group of 18 and 20-year-old guards who are letting in journalists so they can take video .show the world the enormity of the place. it was really astounding. nearly everything is gilded in some way. and there are so many tourists there, just cannot believe what they see. the grounds are so enormous. i would describe it as if the modern kind of spa/conference center resort. if you wanted to privatize the place and turn it into some kind of business, you could do that because there are so many facilities on the grounds that would work for that, to hold massive meetings, to hold big parties, a huge, you know, car garage, not to mention the zoo, the tennis courts, the spa, etcetera. >> that is incredible there. thank you so much for your
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update. just crystallizes the concerns that people have there about the level of corruption. can i ask you what you think of the current situation in ukraine? and perhaps the potential for spillover to other countries in the region and tensions, of course, with russia, too. >> well, yes. i think there is a potential for spillover because -- simply because investors are nervous about the em complex in general. i think, obviously, the situation in ukraine is very special. very special political situation that we've all followed in the last few days and weeks. but i think the ukraine is also sharing some common characteristics with many other vulnerable eu economies. so ukraine is a member of what we call the double deficit club in emerging markets. and apart from ukraine, the club includes countries like brazil, turkey, south africa, india and indonesia. so these countries have external
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deficits, they are big budget deficits. and so they've been under pressure and i think this is not over yet. >> thank you for staying with us. >> we'll get more from you in a second. stay there. still to come, if whatsapp is worth $19 billion, how about could blackberry raise and would the struggling canadian firm sell? what blackberry told cnbc exclusively, next. [ male announcer ] whether it takes 200,000 parts,
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welcome back to "worldwide exchange." these are your headlines. >> ukraine's government says new government will be formed on thursday. >> matteo renzi has a confidence vote. and is mt. gox gone bankruptcy? >> cisco prices $8 billion bond offering, largest since september of last year. bankers received $20 billion to investors for a company that doesn't sell them often.
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cisco's last sale was in 2011. the high grade companies have sold about $163 billion worth of debt in the u.s. this year, down from $175 billion at the same point last year. cisco shares under a little bit of pressure in the german market. bitcoin, which is struggling to gain some level of acceptance among consumers, investors and regulators may have suffered a major setback. morgan brennen is at cnbc hq with the latest. morgan, tell us more. >> hi, jewel where a. yes, the website of the bitcoin's industry's major exchange mt. gox has gone off-line today amid growing speculation it's on the verge of bankruptcy. pushing the price of the currency down 20%. the site is blank and trading on the exchange has been halted. and the pr representative for mt. gox says it's no longer in charge of the pr for the exchange.
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earlier this month, mt. gox halted customer withdraws after detecting, quote, usual activity. the exchange blames the problem on a critical loophole. on monday, mt. gox deleted all the posts from its twitter account a day after the ceo resigned from the board of the bitcoin foundation which is an industry advocacy group. last week, the company announced it moved its office due to security problems. small protests have been going on outside the offices in tokyo since february 15th. the issues at mt. gox have caused frustration among customers in the bitcoin community amid rumors it could be hiding its financial difficulties. an unverified document circulated on the webb claims mt. gox has lost more than 744,000 bitcoins. that's worth $350 million. and that's due to theft related to the software bug. several other major bitcoin exchanges have released a joint
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letter today. it's trying to distance itself from mt. gox and reassuring investors their funds are secure. this was a result of one of the company's actions and doesn't relate the resilience of the value of bitcoin and the digital currency industry. they say, quote, as with any new industry, there are certain bad actors that need to be we'ded out .what is what we're seeing today. now, the statement originally, including wording regarding the possible insolvency of mt. gox, but that was removed. that's because of a lack of verifiable evidence. although he believes they have reliability information to suggest mt. gox is insole vice president. a currency for the group says mt. gox could file for bankruptcy and the "wall street journal" asked the company's ceo last week about its solvency and protection for customers funds. he says the matter is, quote, confidential. they've discussed the business model with zap niece authorities to ensure your operating within
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the law. now, until its disappearance from the webb today, mt. gox was the second largest exchange. it accounted for 18% of total bitcoin trade. >> i've heard about people protesting outside therefore offices, too. >> yeah. joining us now, what's your reaction to this news? how bad is it for bitcoin? >> well, it's certainly bad for mt. gox. but if you look at the history of bitcoin, this doesn't look so bad. it's only been down by 20% today. it's bouncing back up. and 2014 has gotten off to a rocky start for bitcoin. it's certainly not one of the worst days in the coin's history. >>. >> it's bad to use mt. gox, isn't it, if they can't get their cash out. >> it's terrible for people to
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use mt. gox. i think there's a real risk that some people will never see their money there. there's been troubling signs coming out of mt. gox for close to nine months. it really escalated in the last month. >> why can't this happen to any other -- i mean, everybody is going to look at this and go, if i've lost money in this bitcoin exchange, why would i put any more money into bitcoin? >> that's a very good question. a lot of people in the bitcoin community have been saying don't regulate us, keep us regulation free. now you're hearing new voices coming out saying regulation would be a good thing. and that's the positive side of regulation. there's things in place to protect people's money. >> it's one thing to lose money because of the value of the currency. it's a totally different thing to lose money because a business goes bust. that's a completely different thing. you can't trust the system. >> absolutely. there's no deposit insurance, there's no brokerage insurance.
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so i mean, if anyone is putting money into bitcoin, they need to think about what they want to risk when doing that at this stage. >> my argument here, the idea is that the coin allowing the reform of how we transact, how we reduce transaction costs and, in fact, this is the key, the catalyst reforming that on a greater scale? >> what's the point? you will lose your money. >> what i'm saying is that this is the catalyst to reform globally, then i'm willing to see some collateral damage. anyway, we have to thank you. >> i don't think anybody should be losing their money on that stage, whatever the cost. >> the use of products like this, it's a new indices. garric, we have to say thank you. never enough time.
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>> let's get back out to louisa now tt world mobile congress in barcelona. she's been talking exclusively to the blackberry ceo john chen. tell us what he was taking about the potential value of bbm messenger system. >> well, we all want to know what his thoughts are surrounding the deal given that blackberry has their own messaging system and there's been speculation in the past about whether or not blackberry will be broken off into different units, whether that's a way of extracting value from a company that's going through quite a tough time as of late. they've lost ground to samsung, apple, as well. he was brought on board just in this last year as an interim ceo. he saw something like 40 ers of the workforce having to be cut from the group. what is the value of these instant messaging systems, especially given the huge discrepancy in price when you look at something like what was
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paid by facebook for whatsapp. so i spoke to john chen and asked him what his thoughts were in on this price. >> we have a little bit over 58 million today. they're a very high level of engagement, which gives us more enterprise than professional users to take a long time. it's kind of a long engagement cycle. so that is high value from that perspective. but i think that the -- you know, if i run a company, i need to figure out how to continue to expand it rather than thinking about how that's worked today. >> john chen, of course, very well known in silicone valley. he's stepped in, he's done a couple of turn arounds in his time, especially a very large one that was sold off to sap eventually for $6 billion. he knows a thing or two about how to restructure companies and make them profitable again. so will he be able to do the job for blackberry is the issue. listen to what he had to say in
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regards to the turn around. >> the key is the customer. the customer, if we engage back acquiring technology, using the technology and, therefore, you could have a protble business and you could invest in future innovation. that's the key. there's no secret. you say to take it a step at a time. coming up later this afternoon on european closing bell, i'll be speaking to the ceo. he'll be talking about the chip industry as will be ceo of qualcomm. that's all coming up on european closing bell a bit later on. be sure to stay tuned. >> louisa, thank you. we will most definitely do that. >> also still to come, have u.s.
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now, if you're just waking up stateside and thinking about breakfast, yumm, take a look at this. taco bell is launching a breakfast menu in the u.s. on march the 27th. items will be portable, meaning you can eat with one hand while texting with the other. >> that's always useful. >> it includes a concoction of a waffle taco, wrapped around sausage, bacon, egg and cheese. mcdonald's owns at least 20% of the market has been at it for a decade. the gold.archers is considering
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expanding breakfast hours past the current 10:30 a.m. slot. ooh. coming across the wires here, the co-founder of ppg contemplating going public. he's not too harsh. a coy comment there, perhaps. don't want to read too much into it. >> meanwhile, economists with contemplating a slight index increase. chase shiller home provideses will be released, possibly just under 4% year on year. thanks for your patience. what are we going to read into this number today? >> well, i think it will show that the housing market in the u.s. is still very robust. i think develops are driven by
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the fact that the deleveraging in the household sector is over. u.s. household res willing and able to take on new debt. this has shown up in data all across last year. and this is reflected in still very robust gains in house prices. so i think that's the thing to focus on. the underlying economy in the u.s. is very robust, it's driven by the private sector, by households and increasingly by corporates to increase cap ex. and so i think we shouldn't make too much of the portion. >> yeah. it will -- how -- we shouldn't make too much of the weather descriptions. when will we have that all out of the way for the data? >> well, i think in the data we get in the next two weeks, which are for february, you will see a lot of distortions. most in the northeast myself two weeks ago, in february will be bad, but i think come april, when we get the march data, i think we will see first evidence
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of a fairley sharp snapback in the u.s. economy. to me, the big question is how big will that snapback be? we think we could see up to 4% gdp growth in the second quarter after less than 1% in the third. >> wow, you're talking about seeing a u.s. -- back up to 4%, what impact is that going to have on u.s. equity markets? that will be a crucial question, emerging markets, too. >> yeah. i was talking about gdp, not yields. but obviously, if we get 4% gdp growth in the secretary quarter, this will push.from yields and i think this will have repercussions. domestically, you could say it should bcht from stronger economic data so they could probably stomach an increase in yields, but i worry much more about what higher u.s. yields do to europe, which is still in a fairley weak state and even more so, what is emerging market countries that have seen big capital in flows in the past but are now suffering to some extent from capital outflows.
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good morning and welcome to "squawk box." the s&p 500 sets a new interdate day all-time high. we've been watching. it was 1856, but it didn't close above 1850. and jpmorgan could be planning more job cuts. home depot is expected to roll out quarterly results. and it's tuesday, february 25th, 2014. "squawk box" begins right now. >> good morning, everybody. welcome to "squawk box" here on cnbc. i'm becky quick along with joe kernen and andrew ross sorkin.
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our top story centers on the market today. right now, if you take a look, you'll see the dow futures are down, but only about 17 points. s&p 500 futures are down by 2 and this comes after day when the dow basically had triple digits gains. we saw it giving back half of the gains it had earlier in the session. on monday, again, if you were watching, the dow jumped by just over a hundred points. to close at 16,207. the s&p 500 set an interday record of 1858, joe, breaking through that high close of last year. before pulling back to close at just over 1847. that is a point away from its all-time closing high. and the nasdaq reached a 14-year closing high. david bianco, chief equity strategist from deutsche bank will gives his results. >> quarterly results from home dep depot, earn dollars 73 cents
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