. good morning and welcome. you're now watching "street signs." i'm louisa bojesen. and i'm car line. you're watching "street signs." >> buying the rumor. deutsche bank considered a merger, but the deal is not an option. a boost for telecom 600. the backlash begins. the eu 13 billion euro tax fine for apple. french economy minister

resigns to work on his plan to transform france, but stops short of declaring he will run for president. >> hi, everybody. good morning. and welcome to show. >> good morning. how are you. >> lots to talk about today. >> a whole lot. a busy morning with regards to news flow. get on the bigger stories soon. as we start the show, european equity markets. you've seen a slightly mixed session in asia overnight. we'll talk more about that or hear from shri i somehow say. we're gearing up for payroll figure on friday. it seems like the corporate stories are coming back into the fray this august lull. it might be out there in terms of the actual liquidity that we are seeing thinner tried. doesn't mean we don't have big

stories to deal with at the moment. plenty of them. when it comes to sectors out there, seeing quite a bit of buying into autos, insurers, banks in particular. banks up almost 2% this morning. >> that's actually our top stories. trading sharply higher after revealed deutsche bank had considered a merger with german rival. however, ceo has debunked the rumor telling the conference in frankfort the deal is not an t mergers are necessary to allow european banks to compete. just to continue with the commentary, germany has too many banks and low margins. need more banks at a national and cross-border level and the priorities for european banks should be to include technology and lower costs. that tie up actually makes sense. speaking to an analyst and

saying it won't go ahead in the straightforward way in the two major banks will be tieing up. there is a chance there could be a joint venture between the retail arm deutsche bank has been trying to sell for a long time. this is a very low profitability arm. have been trying to get rid of it. if the two big banks were to merge, that would seem major competitive concerns because the bank is active in the sme in germany. >> you could say a lot of these big german banks lost their shine in terms of performance. commas bank used the be seen and then its value dropped so much in terms of share price and deutsche bank having had a lot

of restructuring they've gone through along with a bumpnch of other banks as well. it's noteworthy too talking about how the central banks need to take action. says the banks need to become more efficient, but it won't be enough if they continue to face headwinds in terms of monetary policy. we need better regulation rather than more, but not advocating a complete turn around. kind of putting the ball back in the court of the central bank and saying there's not a lot to do and saying it's difficult to operate in an environment where interest rates are so low. >> he's been so critical of negative rates. writing many pieces and many editorials about this. going on about it saying we lose hundreds of millions a year due to negative interest rates. he also says this is interesting, he hopes the time will not come back where bankers feel as the masters of the universe. he's been on the forefront of trying to make a big shift in terms of the culture at deutsche

bank. there have be too many scandals as we already know. >> inning you're right think ys of the competition. they would be all over it in terms of a merger like this. >> germany trying to scrape the barrel for some news on a slow august day. >> i don't know. >> might be. >> stranger things have happened there as well. another big story of course we were talking about yesterday, apple shares closing down after it ruled it owed 13 billion in taxes from illegal irish state aide. outlined what the decision needs for multinational firms operating in the eu. >> we're sending a message to any taxpayer in europe, be it multinational, stand alone companies, big companies or small companies, european or

foreign. this is a wonderful place to do business and invest, but you have to play by the rules. not to rely on unfair tax benefits. >> meanwhile, the irish government has said it will appeal the decision in the eu courts. finance minister michael spoke and will said they broke no rules in tax policy. >> did a deal with app and will we stand over there. secondly, we think the commission is getting involved in what is the competence of sovereign governments in europe. the european treaty is a that individual countries are responsible for taxation policy. and this is an approach through the back door to try and influence tox policy through competition law, and we don't agree with that, but more importantly, we think they're in breach of international tax practice where tax liability

follows economic activity and the economic activity on which they're raising a tax assessment in ireland did not occur in ireland. >> now, by all means, get involved. these are big stories making the rounds at the moment. e-mail the show at "street signs" europe @cnbc.com. we're all on twitter as well. we would love to hear from your both on apple as well as on the german banking story or the european banking story. when it comes to what we're seei ining with regards to the markets. >> i think i just wanted to make a few points on apple before we move on. >> absolutely. i think i jumped over that. >> that's fine. >> i don't know why i didn't scroll through it. >> with apple, isn't this the chance for the uk to shine now that they're exiting the eu because they will no longer be subject to the rules of the eu authority. this new super natural authority

as the u.s. calls it. now the uk could actually attract many of those companies and mr. osborne has already lowered the tax rate. could be a lot more attractive too many of those tech firms. >> to london. >> to london. >> absolutely. i think you're totally right. this is london's prime opportunity to step in and say look, we're no longer -- we're looking to exit the eu, of course, and this could be an opportunity for us to welcome some of these companies. so definitely. i mean, britain could be set to benefit massively. kne neil wilson put out a note saying when the longer term, it's not just a kind of a toss between the european commission and u.s. companies, it's about the regulators and the regulatory environment. we were talking about this yesterday. the corporate environment could change a lot as well. and the tax environment. i mean, is this going to be

precedent to what happens to google. we've been looking at google for a long time. >> facebook is another one. a lot of people wondering now if the europe commission is going to go after facebook. they have tax arrangements with ireland. not the same that apple had with ireland, but maybe as you say, set a precedent there's going to be a lot more investigation into that. what is facebook to do about it. are they going to be upfront about it and tackle it head on or wait for another big charge. >> we'll have to wait and see. as said, i got so wrapped up in getting people involved. >> now is the time to look at the euro dollar. >> really good idea. >> will actually not doing much, despite our excitement really. 1.1134 where we're changing hands for the euro dollar right now. we have seen persistent dollar strength in the last couple trading days. head of global fx strategy and joins us now.

let's talk about today's eu data. getting august inflation numbers. yesterday we saw disappointment in terms of the german numbers. what are you expecting today. >> we are looking for slightly higher relative. having said that, the german data and the french data that we got up-to-date do point to downside risk possibility of another 0.2% reading. i don't think this is going to be extremely relevant for if effects. it could add some pressure, small pressure, if we do get it downsize surprise. it will escalate probabilities that the ecb will have to do more, but having said all that, euro zone data have held up well in the aftermath of the brexit result and all this discussion and hype of the potential hitting confidence. i think if you look at the

market on the whole, it's also what's happening with the fed. it's also a large dollar play. i don't think the euro dollar is going to be a big story of the next three or four months or so. >> what we've seen over the last few weeks or so is the fact that positioning in the dollar has been very light. it hasn't been as acceg excessi you would have thought. do you think that will change. >> first of all, i don't think we do have any concrete information about the positioning in the post jackson hole period of the last three, four days. listen, my general view about the dollar and it has been for a few months now, quite a few months now. the dollar has decoupled from fundamentals. it's overvalued. whether the fed is going to hike in december or september by 25 basis points, i think for the effects it's neither here nor there. what really matters is the pricing of the fed tightening

path. as long as there is no severe pricing and much more tighter tightening path, i still see the dollar on multiquarter declining path from here. >> you pointed out over the last couple of sessions the top six performing market currents have given back quite a bit. >> sure. >> are we going to continue to see that or opportunity found in -- >> no, i think there are going to be some opportunities. we went through a very interesting phase. had the brexit result yet despite all the doom and gloom that people were talking about on a global scale, we've seen a significant rally in emerge lg market assets and edm effects. to some extent it was justified. like the turkish leader and south africa credit risk. gang forward, i think the rally has legs, but different ration is going to be a key issue. >> you would say your preference is what then in emerging markets. >> em, i think from a short to

medium term perspective, i think would like the rubble, and juice left on the brazilian real. i think the lira is going to be laggard. >> we've seen a short covering rally of late. we saw the sterling at a three-week high. we get important data in the form of pmi. when you do think we'll see the next leg down. >> i think when people are back from holidays and when all this discussion are going to start getting warmer again. it was not surprising we've seen such a moving sterling short of extremely excessive. i think it will begin depreciating again. >> you have one of these watches. the big consumer electronic

fair. you enjoy using it or you find it's too. >> sure. >> it work sgls the biggest thing for me it gives me the heads up when i get a phone call. >> it's not too much. >> no. >> okay. good. some people ahate it. they try it and hate it. >> we was focused during the interview. >> good point. >> thank you so much. head of global strategy from unicredit research. >> some people can focus, you know. >> women multitask. men don't, right? >> at least that's the cliche. sorry guys. sorry. still coming up on the show, rajoy get the backing. also telecom tie ups. we die into first half results and get an mna outlook for the

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we are with freezing production at the opec meeting. the country whose economy relies heavily on oil sales has been hit hard by prices and will play an active role when the cartel meets at the end of september. speaking at the conference in paris, bank of africa told cnbc of the challenges faces the nigerian economy following the commodities price crash. >> i think the government in nigeria and across africa have the commodity price crash. what they need to do is balance the economies and the economy is not a quick fix. you don't fix it overnight.

i think the governmefvernment r and working hard towards this. it's a tough thing to do in the devastation. must continue to create the environment that a lot of private sector do. what is good for the private sector is good for society. the private sector of a country do well, then the country will be able to create employment, able to tackle poverty. address policy. that is what we need. that to it seems to me a solution to the difficult economic everyone is experiencing. quick look at oil prices today and over the month of august. today might be down, but look at the month of august. actually rallied quite massively. brent up more than 11%. let's flip over to wti. saw a rally of roughly 10.5%. there's been talk of freeze and

that led to a 20% rally in the first 20 days of the month of august. since then, what happened well we've tapered off a bit because doubts have crept in over the production freeze, and, of course, as you would expect, louisa, some profit taking. >> we've been looking at quite a bit of data this week as well. the japanese industrial output was flat month on month in july following a 2.3% rise in june. we are in singapore and following the data throughout the week. it does seem or feel like at this stage there would be quite a bit of disappointment if we didn't get more stimulus from the bank of japan at at some point. >> your right the latest data point does put pressure on the bank of japan to do something. when you look at what they did or didn't do it was rather underwomening. what that tells me is the the

boj is putting the ball in the court of the fiscal authorities and mr. abe's court to crack down with structural reform. having said that, everything is on the table, especially if dollar yen is around 100 or thereabouts when we get to the meeting. overall the tone was fairly reasonable in today's markets in asia, despite the fact we saw a bit of a stumble on wall streetover nigstreet over night. the nikkei outperforming by 1%. elsewhere not a great deal of conviction until we get clarity on where we stand in terms of the major economies. talking about u.s. and china. tomorrow. we get the pmis then. the official number and the number from the private surveyors as well. so that could very well set the tone for mainland china or equities. ladies back to you now. >> thank you very much. ill i had reported a rise.

sales rising more than just 6% as the french tell co-player confirms financial goals. il iliad. bouygues improves plan in 2016. now, meanwhile, chairman and ceo named two deputy bosses thereby paefing the way for possible succession. shares higher by almost 4%, outperforming the broader market today. head of telecom research joins us. good morning. yes, set a nice improvement in profit this time. also the markets reacting to the

stabilization in the auto books and construction business as well. particularly french construction is a big thing for them has been problematic, under quite a bit of pressure. also looking like it's heading back in the right direction again. makes for a good package this quarter. >> do you think they're going to continue to try to pursue some type of tie up with a company. doesn't seem like that's going ahead any point in the future. >> it's difficult to see how you get this to work. it's not to say it's impossible. it could come back on to the agenda. i think doing the right thing which is to say, well, proceed on the basis we're going to keep the business and try to turn it around and improve profitabil y profitability. up to line with more industry levels. certainly hasn't been delivering in the last couple of years. i think this works whichever way the outcome goes, but certainly if they're going the deep it, they need to keep it at a better level of profitability than

we've been seeing from the telecom business. >> the fact of the matter until we see a tie up between any of the french kol kom tell come players. >> probably the promotion activity is less now. particularly on the fixed line side. we saw some of the pricing pressuring coming off after the deal failed. a function of people being particularly aggressive into trying to drive motivation to do the deal. and taking some of that motivation away has lead to the promotion efforts going away. it is a promotional market. particularly on the mobile side. pricing is keen. >> the french telcos. when will they be profitable again? >> levels of profitability are

depressed, but they're not negative. i'm not sure what the definition of profitability was in the quote you read, but we're expectiexpec expectiexpec expectiexpec expectiexpec expecting improvement. oern on the other hand we think we need to spend more capital on the fixed business. that means capex will be rising. even if cash profitability is going up, some of that is going to get consumed, if not all of it, by increased capital investment. fast broad band needs of their customers. >> putting all this together, what's your target price at the moment. >> excuse me, we have a target price of 2730 for bouygues. >> you cover more than one st k

stock. i don't expect you to remember all that you cover. >> you said 27 euros 30. >> plus the dividend. >> okay. boig. >> in terms of how they compare to their competitors out there. >> they're coming off a lower base. the margin is considerably lower by orange. so they have catching up to do. showing that momentum. >> will simon, thank you very much. head of european telecom research at city. >> thank you very much. >> now astrazeneca is set to pay a fine to settle a foreign bribery charge. the british drug maker cooperated with the probe. neither accepting or denying the charge. up around 8% this year alone. meantime, bhp ceo will not receive a bonus this career.

pushed the group to $6.4 billion annual loss. federal prosecutor said brazil is set to decide whether to decide bhp executives in connection with the accident in coming weeks. how's your memory? >> it's okay, i guess. how's yours? >> depends. it goes down as we get older. >> if i write things down i tend to remember more. a lot of things look up stuff and use your memory space for other sg other. >> i'm good with birthdays. bad with other numbers. >> i'm good with five numbers. that's it. >> happy birth whenever it is. >> we need to take a short break. check out world markets live. it's our blog. runs throughout the trading day. find loads on there. find carp lynn on twitter. myself on twitter. see you in a couple of minutes.

welcome to "street signs." your headlines this morning. buying the rumor higher on a roort. deutsche bank is considering a merger or had considered a merger in the bast. ceo says the deal is not an option. a boost for boig telecom's arm. increase in first half profits. the backlash begins the eu's 13 billion euro tax fine comes under fire from the company. the white house and the irish government. the french economy minister resigning to work on his plan to transform france, but he stopped short of declaring he will run for president.

last trading day of the month of august. couple hours into trade. want to show you what we've done in the course of august. up 1.2%. we haven't done much. that really is a reflection of what's been going on in the markets. we've seen very low volumes. low volatility and many bankers have warned a degree of complacency in the markets. the dax is up 3%. the ftse has seen a small gain as well. 1.5% and recovered some of the losses that we've seen as a result of brexit, but overall, many bankers out there still preferring u.s. equities over eu equities post-brexit, of course. >> yes. absolutely. the french economy minister has resigned giving himself room to, quote, transform france. the 38-year-old former investment banker did not say he

would run in the 2017 presidential race, but it has been widely cited as his reason for stepping down. nancy is in paris and has been following this. and nancy, i mean, the real reason. we can only speculate at this point, but a lot of people are saying that's the direction he's heading. >> reporter: that's right. a lot of discussion underway here from business leaders and also policymakers, politicians as to exactly what his intentions are and how he could shake up the presidential race. as you touched on there, he has resigned from his post. we know he laurgeed his own party back in april and simply said he's working on transforming this country. taking the pulse of france to see what the people want in the way of reforms, all, but stopping short of announcing his bid. one candidate that could really have his race impacted if throws hat in ring is former president.

he is here about today take the stage behind us any minute now. it will be interesting to see the tone he strikes. what he says to the business leaders. although he is under the socialist party, he's often been seen of a champion of business leaders. the policies they want when it comes to 35 hour workweek. scrapping that extending sunday trading hour. very interesting dynamic here. i've had a chance to speak to a few leaders. asked them exactly what they want to hear from the candidates. >> i think it's an interesting guy. first of all. comes from the business world. his most important asset has been working in the a bank. he knows the world. he speaks perfect english. he knows the entrepreneur. so he knows the business and this is a phenomenal asset. after that, i don't know its program. i don't know if he's going to be candidate.

we are expecting him to tell us what he wants to do for the future. >> who has more to lose if he does become a candidate, i. >> i wouldn't like to tell you my choice because we have to look at the programs. what i see is france there's kind of an economical future revolution on process. on the right and on the left, people are all speaking about business attraction of france and the fact that the business is so important for the economy and for growth. so i think this is very important that we see candidates right now and they starting to deploy the programs and they say it's important to optimize 35 hours a week, to decrease the tax burden on companies. so all or message that we are pushing and pushing for three or four years are now part of the programs on the right, but sometimes we see that on the left.

so i think i'm optimistic on what's going to happen in france becau . we see more and more candidates taking some of our ideas. >> the president of meta fair really outlining the challenges that the current president potentially a future president of france will face when it comes to push along labor reforms and send a message in post-brexit environment that france remaining open to business, open to foreign investment. so no doubt these will be issued. macron resigns. also standing for the rights ticket. they are considered top rival there is, and, again, if you add macron into the mix, this is becoming a crowded election contest in france. >> good sieeing you, nancy.

thank you. spain's parliament is set to vote today. the go ahead to form a minority government. striking a deal on sunday to secure another 32 votes, rajoy is not expected to achieve the necessary backing today. rajoy warned of the knock to spain's democracy if the country was forced back into the polls for a third time. >> translator: i cannot think of anything more hurtful to spanish democracy than to tell the spanish people their vote was useless on two occasions and repeat the general election for a third time. >> votes stacked up against president rousseff. final vote due today. her dismissal is widely expected. 13 years of rule by the leftist workers party. >> a top isis leader has been killed in syria.

the group's main spokesman and head of operation died after being wounded in an operation just outside of aleppo. the pentagon said it carried out air strikes in the area, but declined to say whether these killed him. the second in command was in charge of group's propaganda, including videos spread online to attract followers. >> people have been writing in. david writes in with a view on apple. the eu haves apple. says the eu is pushing its luck here. after the brexit vote you would think that member states wish to retain their sovereignty if they carry on interfering in tax affairs, they may find a few more referendums looming. are we looking at -- i guess we are. that was one of the main arguments for brexit vote was precisely to be more independent. >> exactly. >> i guess in some way, maybe the uk and those brexiteers will

think, oh, wow, we're redeemed because this is happening. this could have happened to us had we still been under the rule of the eu in the future of course hypothetically. >> i wonder how much money five years for example a company like apple would bring into the uk if it were to decide to relocate here. >> would they? there's still a big gap in terms of the taxes between ireland and the uk. even though uk has brought down the corporate tax. >> precisely. moving on, republican presidential hopeful donald trump has accepted an invitation to meet mexican president. said, quote, i believe a dialogue to promote the interest of mexico and the world and to protect mexicans wherever they are. >> nbc traf cie potts joins us

from washington. why exactly is trump doing this? >> reporter: first of all because he was invited. both candidates were invited. the clinton campaign says she's already met with enright knhim. donald trump who has got this big speech on immigration, who has built his campaign on building the wall, this could be a pivotal meeting. he heads down there this afternoon to sit down with the mexican president who trump has insisted will pay for this wall along the border. and pena insisted he will never do that. being a fly on the wall could be interesting in this meeting. before that, we knew donald trump was headed to arizona tonight for a big policy speech on immigration. he said if he's still working on it. staying on teleprompter, explaining not only what he wants to do with the border, but also what he wants to do with the 11 million undocumented immigrants already in this

country. of late he's given mixed messages of whether they would be able to stay legally and how. >> thank so much for that. tracey, nbc news in washington. >> bouncing back from brexit. britains are slugging off concerns about consumer confidence. is it a case of retail therapy? we'll talk more about this. you're still watching "street signs." join us on e-mail. join us on twitter as well. we'll see you in a second. .

wanted to brick you some breaking news on the frankfort airport. it is partially evacuated. on twitter, a person has breached the security at the frankfort airport. the police is evacuating.

this is in terminal one. as soon as we have more information, we'll bring that to you. >> getting back to the markets and recapping what we've seen so far for the month of august. we still have a majority of a day to go in terms of trade. state side though, this is what we're looking at on the s&p 500. very flat line in terms of where we started off august and where we're looking to close out august. not to ignore the fact we're very close to one-year highs on u.s. trades. so the change for august, i'd say, is very meager. just a couple of points to the upside if anything. when moving on. showing you what we're doing with regards to the dow. slightly broader index and very flat for the month of august. when it comes to nasdaq. we're seeing more movement there. not by much. the change being that we're up by approximately a percentage point or so. people really not doing a lot in terms of repositioning massively and moving into our out of equities for the month of august, and we're now going be

waiting for the non-payroll data, and, of course, see what happens with the fed in september. >> let's talk about house prices here in the uk. i'm looking at the latest nationwide survey. british house prices picked up speed. the rise picked up speed. increased more quickly than expected. month on month, up by 0.6%. prices rose 5.6%. compared to the same month last year. >> have shares in graphton group fall today. retailer says it may look to close less profitable stores to cut costs. this despite posting a 12% jump in operating profit the first half of the year and raising dividend by 6%. joining us around the desk is cnbc reporter. we have the nationwide news on the one hand. graphton on the other hand. how healthy or unhealthy is the uk housing market. >> the nationwide numbers give you is a headline number. house prices are going up again.

what it doesn't tell you is nothing is happening behind 2 scenes. we not seeing any supply. the houses on the books the lowest in 30 years. on the other hand we're seeing no demand. there's no one coming in and registering as buyers. what that really masks is a complete transaction. a phenomena we saw in the lead up to the brexit vote and continued there after. >> on the other hand we have the low sterling. that's attracting many buyers. >> i would think that would be an instantaneous reaction. if people wanted to take advantage of that, they could have swept in and taken advantage of that right away. what takes longer to feed stlu the hit to demand. if there is a slow down in the economy, if there is an effect on the labor market and wages, that's not something we'll see ripple through for another months or quarters. >> we always hear we're in need of new buildings or housing in london and the outskirts sw s a

well. >> is this something is the government is going to hold back on. what are people talking about in regards to pushing out more build. >> greg: it feels the momentum has picked up with the imptous to build at the moment. we had a report come n out in july that spoke to the need to increase the ambition. increase the target. it has been around 200,000 new houses a year. that's been boosted up to 300,000 is what they're calling for. it will be interesting to see what the new government pushes aide with. >> you have the whole issue on stamp duty and other taxes. and speculation whether or not we could see them doing away with some of these big costs that buyers incur. >> a lot of focus at this point from the chancellor. first big pronouncement in that position, but also because there has been such a clear stalling of the property market since the new taxes come into play. repeated cause through the industry to lessen it.

very interesting to see if he follows through and makes a move like that. >> the home builders buying large haven't faired too badly. a couple of weeks ago we got surprisingly good updates from a number of them. graphton now painting a more, you know, somber tone. by and large on balance, do you think they're dealing okay with it? do you think we're going to see big losses? >> the home builders are in a unique position. this is because eight of them build over 50 bkt of t% of the the moment. small or medium house builders collapsed during the financial crisis. haven't been able to reenter the market. it's very high barriers to inter. costs are high if you're not a preferred supplier. not a lot of land available. they're in a very good position at the moment. >> the british consumer confidence has made a comeback

after a brexit blip. confidence in august posted best monthly rise since june 2015. rising 5 points having slumped 11 points after the july referendum. britains are determined to care on shopping for today rather than saving for tomorrow. that's always a good idea, right? >> absolutely. >> prime minster theresa may will meet with ministers for the first time today since sending them on summer holiday to formulate brexit strategy. may will hope to negotiate the next step with parliament. she maintains she will not trigger article 50 until next year. speaking at the conference in paris, cbi president told cnbc what he told theresa may if he had a seat at the table. >> we've had a fantastic r relationship right across europe for 40 years. during that time we've been able to trade freely in goods and services. and if a strong economy is vital

to prosperity and jobs and opportunity for all, then continuing to have strong growth across europe is important. so first, let's seek every opportunity we can to have good strong trade between uk and the countries in europe. let's continue to benefit from the many trade deals that exist today and build on those. and importantly, let's continue to have access to the talented skills we need right across europe, including the uk, in order to build the best products and services globally. they would be the top three factors. need to be pragmatic about regulation and i would say perhaps most important of all today is to give confidence of the residents in the uk and in europe that no matter what happens, they're residency in those countries will be protected. >> let's get out to seth linden. thanks for joining us bright and

early this morning. brexit has hit so many uk companies and multinationals like a freight train, from a public relations perspective, how have they faired? >> i don't think they have faired that well. by the way, thank you for having me. the reality is that many companies baked in the fact that brexit would not happen and they have not well articulated their messages in terms of what they should be doing, what the impact is going to be to employees. what the impact is going to be to clients and investors, et cetera. so you essentially have this level of uncertainty and lack of vision that still occurring. i think you would no doubt agree that throughout the uk and europe, there's still this sort of wait and see approach. what will happen. what will happen in terms of the ultimate impact of day-to-day operations of many companies. i was actually in london the day before the vote and it was very clear to me that companies had already figured out this will pass, it will be close, but

clearly they missed the mark. it's abroader lesson. that wasn't the case here. it's a good lesson. we have to think about it here in the u.s. in terms of the election coming up no doubt. >> you make a very important point about transpar si. what if the correspondents don't know what the effect of brexit will be. how can you prepare for that? >> well, obviously there's noel silver bullet. there's never a perfect way to anticipate any news. a good corporation will sit down and go through the process soft saying what does this mean? can we at least come up with a lock box of statements and plans and ways of answering basic questions to clients and customers about how they're business will operate given these different scenarios. i think right now, it would be very important for a firm in uk

and throughout europe as well as in the u.s. to be taking into account, for example, a trump presidency or post-brexit when we know more. to actually go through the process of sitting down and saying what will this mean, how do we articulate the worst-case scenarios and you really have to sit down and go through a very thoughtful process. this dogoes to a broader point every corporation today should be thinking not about big events, but what if ceo resigns. what if there's a situation where there's a data breach. what if there's a situation where there's suddenly a lawsuit or active mall fee sense, many large companies don't take advantage of that. >> sure, you are with us from a public relations perspective that you're representing that side of business because i would argue that the vast, vast, vast majority of people that come through our doors are already doing this. are there things, big companies, at least, i would be very surprised if they're not

considering, you know, what happens if the ceo resigns or some of the things you just mentioned. are the things outside of these quite obvious points that you think companies are ignoring? >> well, you raised a very key point and it's really the fact you would think that big companies would be doing this, but i can tell you we work with the fortune 500 level, large hedge funds, many companies have not really taken the step or the time to think through these basic scenarios. yes, they have plans, but they need to really be dusted off a shelf and companies do not spend enough time doing this. i will tell you that at the large corporate level, companies constantly are surprised by events and are running light sfeed and bring in firms like ours to help them. i think really q4 in 2017 is an opportunity to change that a little bit. to bring in some outside counsel. here's a good test for i would say the next time you're sitting down with the ceo. ask them before you go on

camera. tell me a little bit about your firm. what you will find even at the large corporate level is many crows and key portfolio managers can articulate that basic question. gives you a sense of what they think about the firm they're almost too much in the weeds and the same rate not thinking about the broader implications of what would happen to the organization. brexit was proof in the pudding if you will. >> thank you so much. getting up so early to be with us. we appreciate it. seth linden. president. >> shares are trading higher after it was revealed that deutsche bank had considered merger in the past. debunk the rumor saying the deal is not an option. also says germany has too many banks and merger are necessary. take a look at deutsche bank shares up 3%. similar percentage gains on the

dax. up by almost 4%. also getting comments through from the new ceo. he says we are very well capitalized. capital is not the core question and he echoes comments that deutsche bank made, yes, germany does have too many banks. there should be some consolidation, but once again both banks saying a merger is not an option and i spoke to an analyst from atlantic equities and reiterate what he said. his comments make a lot of sense. from a competitive standpoint, they would never be a merger between the two because both are very active in the sme segment in germany. many anti-kmetive concerns. one optionality a tie up could happen, that could be a joint venture, the retail unit that deutsche bank wants to get rid of, but that's the only avenue he sees right now. >> also just to reiterate talking at the top of the hour,

if you're just joining us, they're also pointing out in this interview, the ceo of deutsche talking about how it's the turn of the central banks, that the central banks have to take more action and he went on to say the banks have to become more efficient, but it won't be enough if you continue to face head winds in terms of monetary policy. >> negative interest rates. >> and we're in an environment now because you're not seeing a steeping of the yield curve despite the fact we think the fed is maybe on a rate hiking cycle to come in the very near future. banks are sitting in a tight spot and ceo of the banks are starting to point fingers at the central bank saying you need to carry your share with what's going on with the bank as well. >> just looking for the comments made by john earlier. he's been very, very vocal about the negative impact that negative interest rates have on

the banking sector. he's written a couple of essays about that too. he reiterated this morning that we lose hundreds of millions a year due to negative interest rates. the problem is negative interest rates aren't going away any time soon. we can see that given the inflation numbers we'll get out of the eu later on this morning for the month of august. they're not expected to budge much. that means the ecb won't be stepping away from ultra low monetary policy soon either. >> you know also we were talking about the restructuring that these banks have gone through already. be it organizational structuring, be it human resources. what have you. deutsche bank ceo also talking about how compared to their competitors, we should be running at staff levels 25-30% below what we have. that's on top of all the, you know, the staff eliminations we've already seen. so he's still talking about how they maybe need to do even more. >> very painful restructuring

for both banks. you would have thought the kmans bank turned a quarter. they returned to profitability quite quickly. deutsche bank is still in the dull drums. >> let's have a quick look at u.s. futures. >> implied open on the right-hand side of your screen. say it it's a flat open that we're looking for here. today in trade. that's two days ahead of the nonform payroll data. >> that's it for today's show. i'm louisa bojesen. >> and i'm carolyn roth. >> have a lovely day. see you soon.

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good morning. more mergers needed. were they misinterpreted. more likely than not, a notable economist saying a an interest rate hike is probable in september. piece of the pie. what are uber and lyft. google may be looking to break into the ride sharing business. watch out. it's wednesday, august 31, 2016. "world wide exchange" begins right now.