welcome to "street signs." i'm joumanna bercetche these are your headlines the sky is the limit in the media bidding wars comcast puts $22 billion on the table for sky sending shares to a 17-year high the comcast says he is open to co-own the pay tv company with murdoch or disney. persimmon pretax proof rises

25% dragging the rest of the building sector higher. standard charter trades higher in hong kong after pretax profit jumps 17 5% beating forecasts. sky shares rallied to a 17-year high on news that comcast entered the bidding battle the u.s. cable giant unveiled a 22 billion pound offer this morning representing a 16% premium to the dealready on the table from 21st century fox. because both companies create and distribute content, it is said the combined group would be stronger than if 21st century

fox takes full ownership of sky. however he says he is willing to co-own the company as long as he has a 51% stake. lots of ins and out. steve, what can you tell us? >> a lot of analysts have been looking at this one for a large amount of 2017 comcast is the owner of this company, as you said we want to keep reminding people of that. they need to diversify away there are great pressures on the cable industry neil campo saying the revenue and annuity stream could be of primary appeal to brian roberts and comcast. let's look at sky itself and look at the company and where it's come from the shares are trading at 13

pounds the two bids, 1075 from fox, 1250 from the comcast group. and as we were saying earlier on on "squawk box," if the shares are parked below 1250, there would have been concerns of whether they could get this one through. at 1250, yeah, that's the price. at 1315, people are saying there's more juice into this one. let's look at the shares of sky and where they are they trade 16 times forward. they have a bid premium on the back of today's move before this, very interesting. the analysts did not see this one coming there were 11 holders on the stock, one seller, only five buyers or strong buyers. looking at the ownership of sky, mr. murdoch as we know is the majority shareholder 21st s 1 s1st century fox owns the share capital, 61% is owned

elsewhere. there was a good piece saying that it might not be the regulators in the uk that may be the problem, but the hedge fund who own about 13% of the share capital as of late last year in the company, including the biggest hedge fund holder of the stock, bow post group. it's interesting where sky goes next the most recent numbers are, first half earnings rose about 13%. customer base was rising as well the revenues were up 5% year-on-year the cost of acquisition of programming, creating programming, everyone is making more programming we don't need to talk about amazon prime and netflix to see that story revenue up to 6.7 billion

pounds 5% year-on-year and in line with the first quarter. cost of acquisition, a lot of these customers and cost of production are on the rise churn, that's something people look at in kpis in this sector, key performance indicators, too shy high at 11%. alex degroot told "squawk box" earlier on that the fight for control of sky is far from over. >> the interesting dimension is disney disney put this offer in for fox, they don't own fox. they have the balance sheets to bid up sky way beyond 1250 fox in tehemselves, will have t get the calculator out and do math this is opportunistic by comcast, but i would expect fox and disney to come back. they have to fox is a 39% shareholder murdoch has been building this business over 20, 25 years

i can't see him waving the white flag and selling his equity to comcast. >> he also predicted another potential buyer could jump in resulting a bidding war for the assets there's a 1$1.5 billion break that fox could have to pay if their own fox/disney deal breaks as well. so fax will have to sharpen their pencils no they'll have to move quickly on that let's listen about what degroot had to say about a bidding war >> they just won the premiere league right force another th e >> they just won the premiere league right force another th fe years. the market has them doing 58 pe of earnings next year. i could see this stock price going way more than 1250 and

downer approa counter approaches from fox and maybe another company. >> shares in the company trading 1312 that gives a market cap that i got of 19 billion pounds, which is digestible for comcast, 26$2. billion u.s. >> and they move up 18% on the day. i've got the vp from multi play and media ccs insight on the phone. i would like to ask you, i'm curious to hear what you think fox's next steps will be are they likely to come back with a higher offer? >> in consistent with what you a bidding war for sky. sky is a great company, great assets has made the successful moves into distribution, competing

head on with amazon and netflix. no wonder we are seeing huge interest in the company now. >> comcast has said that -- brian roberts has said he is willing to co-own the european pay tv of rate eoperator as lone has a 51% stake. in that scenario is fox willing to hold on to their 39% stake. >> you can look at various scenarios. one analyst mentioned it could be another party in the mix as well that could throw something into the works it's clear this story will run for a while now. >> we have not really talked about disney yet that will be one of the key things to watch going forward. disney and fox announced this deal back in december, but the deal is very much under review one of the conditions is that fox agreed to sell its 39% stake of sky to disney are we likely to hear from fox while the fox/disney deal is

under review in the first place? >> yes, for sure i think that adds fuel to the fire, that we'll undoubtedly see murdoch embroiled in a bidding war to ensure he gets that deal through. it's apparent that there's a lot of focus now to benefit from scale, given the huge amount of costs of owning content, using content, being a bigger part of the piece is the big picture >> the offer being put on the table by comcast is at a 16% premium to fox does that suggest that the initial bid was too low in the first place? >> again, you know, that's clearly quite up for debate. comcast has come with an improved offer clearly valuing the company at a higher rate. we will see more upside on this moving forward i doubt for a minute this will be the final bit that we hear on

this >> what do you think the implications are for other media companies in the uk given that it has been -- we've been talking about u.s. companies circling around uk media for a while now. do you think any other companies would likely be taken over >> for sure. we'll see huge disruption ahead. that's very much driven by the underlying giants such as amazon and netflix. consumers are flocking to watch shows on these channels. they put pressure on the likes of itv and many other european broadcasters the u.s. guys are coming and coming in a big way. there is not much scope for growth in the u.s., and plenty of scope for growth in europe given the penetration of tv services is a lot lower compared to the u.s this is just the start of a huge ball of many of these companies coming and looking for strategic assets in europe for growth.

>> would you say it's more a function of geography, it's a vote of confidence in the uk and europe or just a bid and attempt to get more content? >> it's a mixture of things. when you take sky in isolation, the company owns a wealth of content. we have come off the back of a successful premiere league rights auction sky has done a great job in defending its position from the arrival of the netflix and amazons by moving into i pap distribution a great example is now tv. penetrate rates are lower and there is more scope to grow not only users but also revenue. the key point in all of this is how sky has been successful into the moves into ip, and that's a key area for the likes of comcast who have been late to embrace the ott world.

>> thank you, paolo. thank you very much for joining the show this morning. >> we will keep track of further developments coming up on the show, more of our exclusive interview with warren buffett who has a major warning for bond investors that and more coming up. successful people have one thing in common. they read more. how do they find the time? with audible. audible has the world's largest selection of audiobooks. books like peak performance... and endurance. books that energize and inspire for just $14.95 a month. less than you'd pay for the hardcover. with audible, you get a credit-a-month good for any audiobook. if you don't like it, exchange it any time. no questions asked. you can also roll your credits to the next month if you don't use them. audible members use the free mobile app to listen anytime, anywhere.

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welcome back to "street signs. the major u.s. averages are down 3% from all-time highs, and the dow and s&p 500 have more than halved correction losses speaking with cnbc, warren buffett said long-term investors should buy stocks over bonds, contradicting the belief that the bonds are lower-risk investment overtime. >> the stock market relative to the long-term bond market, people have three choices pretty much if they're going to be in marketable securities. they can own reasonably long-term bonds. they can own equities. or they can keep it in

short-term cash equivalents. if you had to choose between buying long-term bonds or equities, i would choose equities in a minute now that doesn't mean i think the stock market will go up or anything else. if i were going to own a 30-year government bond or own equities for 30 years, i think equities will outperform that 30-year bon over the 30 years. >> buffett said investors should avoid using borrowed mochb ney o buy stocks he made the point investors need to take a long-term view on markets and prepared for volatility along the way >> if you own stocks on an apartment house, you don't get a quote on those every week. the value of american business depends on how much it delivers in cash between now and judgment day. i don't think it changes 10% in the two-month period

if you look at it as a business. now you got -- anything can happen in markets. markets don't have to open tomorrow you could have extraordinary events apple has a consumer franchise according to warren buffett. he discussed a stake in the company saying berkshire hathaway more apple than anything else over the past year he outlined why he believed in that stock >> i like tim cook very much i like their policies. i see how strong that ecosystem is to an extraordinary degree. i look at my grandchildren, great grandchildren, everybody in the office, their families. i took to the people at the

furniture mart, when things don't arrive, nobody goes over to android you are locked in, at least psychologically and mentally to the protect you're using all kinds of stuff up on there it's a very sticky product u.s. chipmaker qualcomm reportedly changed its position over broadcom's bid for the company saying it's open to a deal as long as broadcom raises its takeover offer to 1$160 billion including debt broadcom says the shift in the stance is theater. earlier this month broadcom offered 1$146 billion including debt in what it called its best and final offer which was rebuffed it cut the offer after qualcomm agreed to buy nxp semiconductor for $44 billion.

reuters says investigators looking into the potential deal. and softbank's vision fund ceo said the firm is seriously considering listing its mobile unit it was suggested that the vision fund would list the unit to create more money for tech investments. arjun is in barcelona and has been at the congress you also spoke to the ceo of softbank what can you tell us >> that's right. let me give you a quick rundown of what the softbank vision fund is this is a 1$100 billion fund wih apple, qualcomm, they made some huge bets that invested in companies like uber, and others, i sat down with the ceo of the fund and talked about the philosophy of investing with the vision fund and whether he backs dara khosrowshahi's pledge to go

public in 2019 >> he's doing an amazing job we're happy with dara. we're happy with the weymo settlement we're happy with him recruiting his next bench of management the progress he's making with regulators and we are -- we don't need to do anything with dara. he's running a great operation for us >> cnbc reported that uber may sell part of its southeastern asian business over to grab. you spoke to "the financial times" and talked about uber focusing on core markets more than some other markets. was did you mean by that what does that mean for the business going forward >> uber is a global company, present everywhere but china middle east, latin america, u.s., canada, asia and they will remain a global company. one uber app you can get an uber

car anywhere if there's fine tuning in certain regions where they decide to cooperate, that will happen but i believe the future of uber is not just transportation but also food delivery, also insurance, car leasing, all kinds of ancillary businesses globally that's what a platformer should do, to have access to your consumers anywhere in the world and -- but there's so much growth left in these countries even the u.s., 15% to 20% of the population never used a ridesharing app. so there's so much inherent growth in those economies, europe, u.s., for ridesharing that they don't have to -- and

they are market dominant in u.s., latin america, australia they have to stay on course. >> this is the financial one about the company. dara said they want to take the company public by 2019 is that something you're backing as well? >> of course >> it's something they are on track for? >> of course >> that was the ceo of the softbank vision fund it's clear he feels more comfortable with the company they had problems. there was in-fighting between travis kalanick and the board. you had a lawsuit with weymo and regulatory pressure around the world, but he feels dara khosrowshahi is working through those problems another interesting part of the interview we had was around the pace of investment so far softbank has invested around 30 companies, deployed a third of its capital and he said they're looking to

invest in the region of somewhere between 70 to 100 companies. it will be an exciting time for the technology startup industry and firms. you can expect more huge deals in the near future >> i thought that conversation was interesting. he sees the future of uber branching into insurance i met with swiss relast week, they are having conversations with softbank, and in car leasing and froood delivery, so these car businesses are expanding into different areas i wanted to ask about the vision fund itself and to pick up on your comments. you got out of them they spent one-third of their overall capital. did you get a sense of what types of projects they'll be looking at in the future >> yeah. i think you mentioned a few of those. you have food deliveries,

insurance, what's interesting as a whole is uber built itself as a platform we're connecting drivers to riders as long as they have these drivers on their platforms, they can jump into these other services the other part is more down the line but around driverless cars. uber talked publicly about its ambitions to create a network of driverless cars. you can see it happening in deliveries, whether that's food or perhaps parcels and other sorts of logistics, through to car leasing programs many people in the auto industry think that the idea of car ownership is antiquated and we're going to be relying on a network of sharing cars. so these are some themes softbank is excited about around uber that's some of the themes you will see uber expand into. >> going back to softbank and the private venture fund itself, you and i had a chat about this a week ago, you're getting

further in crease in stakes from m some middle eastern players, do you get the sense that softbank would be looking to make investments in the middle east >> that's right. what was interesting is softbank was talking about its philosophy it says it received some criticism from the industry saying softbank lahas a huge pi of cash coming into the market, an he said they are providing liquidity into the markets he said that they are a global player and so they're able to connect companies that they invest in to other companies in their portfolio. he talked about potentially uber working with another company, auto one, which provides used car sales, and talked about any kind of relationship between we work and uber.

and he talked about how companies could link up. uber lahas a presence in many companies, and softbank has also invested in some competitors across the world so he's looking at some of the themes, ride hailing globally, in the middle east, asia, across europe and the u.s so they're looking at how all do these huge tech companies they invest in begin to work together that's where it gets quite interesting. >> arjun, thank you very much for that very exciting space to watch for more on arjun's interview with the softbank vision fund ceo, head online to cnbc is a bidding war brewing shares in sky hit a 17-year high as comcast challenges fox with a 22 billion pound bid for the broadcaster. more on our top story coming up.

welcome to "street signs." i'm joumanna bercetche these are your headlines the sky is the limit in the media bidding wars. comcast puts 22 billion pounds on the table for sky sending shares to a 17-year high the comcast says he is open to co-own the pay tv company with murdoch or disney if he has majority stake persimmon pretax proof rises 25% dragging the rest of the building sector higher. standard charter trades higher in london and hong kong after to 17 pretax profit jumps 175% beating forecasts. we'll speak to the cfo in about 15 minutes time.

sky shares rallied to a 17-year high on news that comcast entered the bidding battle the u.s. cable giant unveiled a 22 billion pound offer this morning representing a 16% premium to the deal already on the table from 21st century fox. brian roberts says there are strategic benefits of a combination with sky he argues because both companies create and distribute content the combined group would be stronger than if 21st century fox takes full ownership of sky. however he says he is willing to co-own the company as long as he has a 51% stake. neither 21st century fox or disney have reacted to the announcement so far. earlier we spoke to paolo from css insights and asked about the ra na rational on the deal let's take a listen.

>> we're going to see huge disruption that's very much driven by the underlying giants such as amazon and netflix. consumers are flocking to watch shows on these channels. they put pressure on the likes of itv and many other european broadcasters the u.s. guys are coming and coming in a big way. there is not much scope for growth in the u.s., and plenty of scope for growth in europe given the penetration of tv services is a lot lower compared to the u.s this is just the start of a huge ball of many of these companies coming and looking for strategic assets in europe for growth. >> steve joined me on the set with more. you have been following this story for a while. what should we be looking out for? >> i think the one moving part which intrigues me the most is

this iger, roberts, murdoch as much as mr. roberts has said they could have some form of ownership sharing what have you, as long as they were majority shareholders, i cannot see how these three titans could be in the same room as co-owners of these assets maybe i'm completely off the ballpark here, but it seems like these are pmen whohave built up huge empires i think that's a very interesting thing. i think the actual share price reaction is key. anyone who looked at these bid situations over the years, like you have over your career, the same with me, we all knows there three scenarios. let's get the share price up 1,317, the markets are saying something extra will happen above the comcast bid.

coming in so much higher than the 1,075 already on the table from mr. murdoch the market is saying they have not parked the shares at 1250, they don't believe this is the final bid baddal at 1,317, the market is saying they think there is extra still to come. whether that comes from disney or share holders saying show us more comcast or from mr. murdoch as well. he must feel a great affinity for this business because he built it this is his baby he created this from nothing looking at the history of sky. the coverage of sports in the united kingdom was woeful compared to what it is now before sky everyone came up the coverage of news was revolutionized by sky as well. they have built an incredible

asset. >> one thing we have not discussed is where the british regulators stand on this. they're still in the process of reviewing the fox potential takeover of sky, and they said so far it's not in the public interest so perhaps this is another avenue whereby the regulator will accept a deal to come in from outside -- from the u.s., but not necessarily from mr. murdoch himself. >> at a time when the hint of protectionism is coming back into international buyers looking at u.s. assets, u.s. companies still, despite the fact they're getting better tax treatment for bringing assets home, are still veracious in their appetite to pick up assets elsewhere. if a british regulator were to say we don't want any potential buyers for this asset, that wouldn't wash as well. let's throw in another angle to this, let's throw in brexit as well the uk government, you can bet

your bottom dollar today, there will be a conservative government politician who will say this is a vote in confidence in post-brexit britain brexiteers are waiting for that. the overlap of nbcu assets, comcast assets, already part of the comcast group, of which we are a part of, probably are not enough to have a regulatory basis based on what you just said, the public iticians will this one as well >> thanks for joining "street signs. let's check in on markets. the ftse is up 0.2% 0.1% actually. we didn't just have the fox sky news -- comcast news at this point, we also had strong home building numbers come out earlier in the session persimmon leading gains there. ftse 100 is in the green xetra dax is not having as good

a day. down 0.1%. ftse mib, which is what everyone should be watching out for ahead of the sunday elections is down 0.2% let's switch to foreign exchange again, it's a theme of mixed picture for the dollar trading weaker versus euro, 0.1% stronger on the day. dollar/yen has reversed its fortunes somewhat, trades firmer cable just below that 1.40 mark. let's switch to u.s. futures it's a big day in the u.s., mr. powell makes his testimony at humphrey hawkins all eyes will be on that we'll get durable goods orders signals pointing to a slightly weaker open. dow jones down 3 points, a day after it was up 400. while samsung's unveiling of the galaxy s9 grab headlines at mobile world congress, the rise

of 5g is on the rise i'm happy to say ar yun is back with us on the show. what can you tell us there >> 5g is undoubtedly the biggest topic here at mobile world congress i have a perfect guest to talk about that the ceo of affirm networks hasan, talk to me about the type around 5g. what is the promise of this technology >> 5g is doing something that networks have not been able to do before. it's going to bring you fiber-like speeds to your handset. the biggest thing it does is enable a bunch of capabilities that we have not been able to do previously bring very low latency services, like vehicle to vehicle communication, virtual reality, augmented reality. you saw around the olympics a lot of this capability, looking

at different angles, overlays, enjoying entertainment >> for you, what are some of the most exciting and useful cases for 5g >> in our case, we're very much involved in helping operators build out these networks and many -- one of the biggest things that is involved in building a knnetwork is drinkin diverse common types on to a network. so by bringing video use cases, augmented reality, the vehicle to vehicle communications, drones, we have a demo running doing video surveillance in san francisco, beaming it here to the booths here in world congress it's a very connected world, a connected, intelligent world we're building >> the telecoms industry has struggled with growth. is 5g its savior

>> i think there's going to be tremendous growth in terms of usage and telecom. no down about it one thing clear about telecom, we are doing more and more and more with networks we're enabling more industries and applications as an industry we need to deliver more capability for about the same price so that pressure, it will remain in the industry, i would think when you look at the diversity of applications and capabilities that we're enabling, it's quite different. >> some are saying we could charge a premium for 5g, do you think that will turn consume e off? >> i think we'll start to see premiums in 5g related to specialized services, enterprise services i think consumers will always want to get more or less the price range we're in >> how do you expect 5g to be

rolled out we've seen announcements from some of the u.s. carriers saying we'll have four or five cities this year with 5g capabilities when does this become a mass available network that people can use? >> 5g rollouts will proceed this year we're seeing the types of production trials that you're talking about. oftentimes they're used in fix line applications. i think in 2019 you'll start to see rollouts with mobility, and really the scale in 5g will start happening in 2020 and will go on for a couple years >> what are some stumbling blocks for this technology the standards we agreed in september and we're hearing noises about rollout plans there seems to be some big challenges remaining for you what are those >> i think from the operator's perspective, there's been two major areas that we focussed on. one is taking advantage of the

new radio technologies that will deliver the capacity increase we're striving to get. that's pretty much coming together the second big piece of the puzzle is the intelligence of the services, networking this for the first time is going to be natively a network based on software, not on hardware those are new things that involve training, resources, work force inside the operators to run software based networks that's where vendors like ours become important this is what we do so we're able to bring that expertise to operator customers. >> thank you very much for your time that's the ceo of affirm networks 5g going to be a big change in the telecoms industry for consumers and businesses still some challenges to overcome and a lot of movement over the next couple of years as everyone moves towards 5g. back to you.

>> i can't wait for that to happen a g has been one of the major topics of conversation at the mobile world congress this year. karen spoke to the ceo of red has the about the advent of 5g and the impact the new technology will have >> as 5g rolls out we're going from fixed hardware based networks to software based networks software is more flexibility and it opens up the whole teleco industry for over the top competitors, new entrants. the operators themselves need to build a greater capability >> explain why software is the dominant feature as we move towards next generations, 5g for instance >> as 5g networks roll out, there's a need for a do over of infrastructure it's rolling out a new set of infrastructure over the last ten years in enterprise technology there's been a move away from the mo

monolithic vertical stacks, and commodity open source software is the infrastructure which is cheaper. all the features we're delivering can be delivered at virtual appliances, think of it as an app store with applications that model is much cheaper to ultimately deliver because you have common infrastructure and it's much more agile in the way you can deploy applications more quickly without physically delivering boxes in this do over in architecture for 5g, there's a sense of let's go to the most modern way we deliver infrastructure now, which is commodity hardware, generic infrastructure and applications run on top of that. >> the industry is at pains to own 5g you can see it when you walk around here, the amount of 5g badges all over the stands, but this is an industry terrified

about fresh competition coming into the mix are they right to be concerned about the challenge? >> absolutely. that's one of the reasons why i think the telcos are focused on how to innovate more and better. as soon as you make the network software oriented, which has to happen with modern infrastructure, you are also opening yourselves up to competition from over-the-top players, googles and facebooks then computing at the edge becomes easy, because those are applications on software who will own that? will it be the operators or new entrants or the large web players? that competition will happen over time. the telcos are well positioned, but they have to build a better, faster capability to innovate in order to compete >> for more on 5g and why the ericsson ceo thinks they're equally as important as roads and railroads, go to cnbc.com.

standard charter shares rise after resuming paying dividends. we'll speak to andy halford after the break. dawn is serving up dinner for a whole town! that table was like... so big! can one bottle of new dawn clean all the dishes? we did it! 6,000 dishes! a drop of dawn and grease is gone.

welcome back to "street signs. media analysts told cnbc that the bidding wart for sky has jus begun at sky is at 17-year highs after new offers have come in. a number of media stock watchers speaking to cnbc say the bidding could push well past the 1250 share that comcast offered today. brian roberts says the tie up would have strong strategic benefits but that he's open to a co-ownership with fox or disney as long as comcast hold as majority stake comcast is the parent company of this network during a trip to paris to meet emanuel macron, disney's

ceo, bob iger, declined to comment on the offer and elsewhere in the u.s. today, jay powell will take the stage in his first public appearance since taking helm of the central bank he will testify before the house financial services committee with remarks being released at 14:30 cet. on thursday he will appear in front of the senate. he will be closely watched for signs he could take a more hawkish view on inflation or the rate hiking cycle. over the last few weeks, a number of other fed members signaled they could be comfortable with inflation rising above the 2% target back in the uk, persimmon shares are on the rise and are on track for the best performance in six years this after the home builder reported underlying pretax profit up by 25% to 977 million pounds operating margin rose to 28% it's also boosted its dividend and had an optimistic outlook

for the year shares in standard charter are higher after the bank soared past expectations for the full year underlying pretax profit rose 175% topping forecasts at around $3 billion regulatory clarity meant the bank could restore a dividend of 11 cents andy halford, the cfo of standard charter joins us on "street signs. last time we spoke was back in november i asked you about the dividend then you said we'll review it at the end of the year, mindful that investors are looking for the resumption of dividends. you announced it today what was the rationale >> two years ago we had to announce that we had t dividend a huge amount of progress has been made.

we got the business not only back into profit but the profit has tripled. some of the things on the regulatory front which were unclear a few months ago have become clearer over the last few months looking out to the future, our view, the board's view is that the resumption of the dividend now was the right thing to do and it's good we were able to announce that today. >> some analysts were hoping for a slightly higher dividend, and the consensus was close to the high teens or 20 cents per share. you announced 11 cents per share. is this more of a symbolic gesture? >> no, consensus was more 13 or 14 cents we announced 11 cents today. it's a substantial amount of money. it's the start of paying dividends again. we said that the intent is clearly to increase that as profitability of the bank improves i think it should be seen more as symbolic.

>> let's talk about operating income it's up 2.6% for the year. this is the first year after four years that it has not declined in growth can we assume the worst is over for now? i think we have put awi lot of things behind us the last two years we had to do things to de-risk the bank that chapter is closed we're operating in strong markets around the world, particularly in hong kong, china, india so we do see the growth prospects being good 2.5% growth last year was weighed down by some financial markets businesses, which have been difficult for other banks as well. one thing we did today was to announce we will guide to 5% to 7% income growth over the next few years. >> how will you achieve that >> first, the markets in which we are operating are growing nicely

a lot of the financial services sectors in the chinas, indias, hong kongs are growing in the mid to single digit range. a lot of investments we have been making over the last two years are starting to show through. with better digital platforms we're making life easier for customers. it's a variety of things on a number of fronts, now we're looking forwards, not backwards, really getting the business moving again >> how much of the improvement is on the back of lower bad debt provisions and does it concern you that now with interest rates looking to rise in the future this will become a problem again >> yeah. so the improvement in our loan writeoffs was something can part of what we announced today the overall cost of that halved between the two years. that is very encouraging i think going forward, interest rate rises, as long as they're

reasonably modest, that should not be a major concern for us. businesses are doing generally well only when you get sharp rate moves do you get a problem in the environment. >> when you think of the market outlook for this year, we had a bout of volatility, things have calmed down a bit, but generally the trading environment and growth environment, do you think that's conducive of further growth >> yes, i do we said the year so far, so two months in, has been strong for us so 2.5% to 3% growth last year, we've seen that in the first two months, and double digit growth. it's been a strong start to the year and been broad based. so fingers crossed it's only two months in but the start for the year is positive >> very important question for you, if you could comment on this you disclosed a jenner pgender p

of 30% what will you do about that? >> the gender pay gap of 30% when we take total headcount like job to like job there is almost no gap. in hong kong, we actually have a gender gap the other way around 1% in some of the bigger markets it's 2%. so on like for like jobs we are very much in the zone. >> andy, thank you very much for joining the show let's take a quick look at markets before we head out u.s. futures are seen opening up just a tad lower the main story has been sky. you can see the shares are up more than 20%. that's it for today. "worldwide exchange" is up next. for your heart... your joints... or your digestion... so why wouldn't you take something for the most important part of you... your brain.

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cnbc parent comcast making a $31 billion cash offer for british broadcaster sky. the great comeback wall street roars back to life putting the dow and s&p 500 within a stone's throw of recouping february losses. and in the hot seat, jay powell faces his first big test today when he heads to capitol hill it's tuesday, february 27, 2018. "worldwide exchange" begins now. ♪