. welcome to "street signs." i'm joumanna bercetche these are your headlines retail rebounds after strong results from carrefour while tech languishes as s.a.p. posts disappointing third quarter margins. lindell leaps to the top of the stoxx 600 on the report that authorities will give the green light to the merger with praxair. novartis trades higher after raising its outlook.

the ceo tells cnbc the investments are bearing fruit. >> our innovation pipeline is delivering when you look at the filings with some cell and gene therapies, and filings of other upcoming launches, you get the sense that we have a strong growth profile building in our innovative medicines portfolio. and he mixed messages on italy coming out of brussels austria's prime minister warns any overindebtedness is a danger for europe good morning welcome to "street signs." we'll take you to some live pictures of the eu leaders arriving at the summit in brussels we know they had a dinner where theresa may gave a speech to her counterparts, and out from that we got the proposal for an extra

year of extension of the transition period we've been talking about. we'll get a bit into more detail on that topic as the show goes on we have various leaders arriving we saw angela merkel, the dutch prime minister is also there that is european council president donald tusk there as well it is not all about brexit we were talking about italy, too, expecting that to feature we have heard from the italian prime minister, conte, who is setting the scene for the european proposal and the italian budget discussions we expect to hear from the european commission on that front in a week or so. those are pictures of the leaders arriving we will bring you more from that summit willem marx has been there and has been speaking to various european leaders

stoxx 600 is up about half a percentage point this morning after a weak session in uk very weak session for shanghai, down 3% overnight. but europe is bucking the trend this morning already firmer we had a multitude of company earnings that crossed the wires this morning we'll get into those switching to european markets first, we have all of the majors trading in the green xetra dax and cac 40 up 0.56, and the ftse mib up 0.70%. as far as sectors, media is up 1.4% decent results out of publics

earlier. healthcare up 1.31 retail also having a good day today. we had some good numbers out of carrefour, that stock is up 6% on the down side, construction and material down about 0.90 heidelberg cement offering a profit warning. and linde's merger with praxair has been approved. i think the investor community were waiting on this final approval we finally got it from the u.s the stock this morning, praxair shares are up 6%, 7% people are taking it well. >> so linde shares are up. the news is the antitrust regulator has given oral assurance to praxair that they will approve the deal.

neither company has confirmed this yet, but they're expecting written approval to come in the next few days. this has been gone on for quite some time. the merger was announced in december of 2016 we had every other major antitrust body approve this. the u.s. was the last one. the u.s. was the most contentious region this is where investigators feared the u.s. regulators would see the most antitrust overlap the share price today suggests that investors are relieved. >> what else should we be watching for in terms of the synergies created from this merger it has been going on for a while. we passed through the last hurdle what does this mean for the new company that will be formed? >> this merger is a megamerger it will create the world's leading industrial gas company you are combining praxair, the industry leader in operational management, they had industry leading margins for a number of years, with linde and their wide

geographical footprint the real risk to the deal was antitrust, but overall investors are looking forward to praxair management running this joint company and taking the best practice at praxair and applying it to this new larger entity >> what does it mean for competition in the space it's a huge megamerger it's cross-border. how are other companies likely to react to this will this spur on activity in other companies? >> it is reflective of the broader industry consolidating heavily. we have seen the french industrial gases company buying usair gas a couple years ago, so this was in reaction to the industry consolidating around them certainly it means we're likely to see further industry pricing discipline which will be positive for the broader industry >> all right

we'll catch up with you in a bit. carrefour shares are higher after the french supermarket chain reported a 2.1% increase in third quarter sales the firm cited strength in brazil, its second largest market as well as in its e-commerce unit. the company is in the midst of a five-year cost cutting plan amid increased digital competition. and publicis shares are trading near the top of the stoxx 600 after reporting revenue growth of 1.3% in line with expectations. the european and asia pacific units performed strongly but north american sales fell. s.a.p. shares are trading lower after third quarter margin numbers disappointed with net profit also undershooting expectations the company did raise its 2018 guidance as it saw cloud revenue surge 41%.

this as europe's most valuable tech firm looks to upsales and installations of cloud services. as we were just talking about. european leaders are arriving in brussels ahead of a brexit-dominated summit it comes as the eu says it is not planning for an extraordinary meeting in november. a backstop solution on northern ireland's border has proven to be the biggest stumbling block in talks so far. the italian prime minister has dismissed suggestions that lega and five star are divided over rome's budget proposals willem marx is following both stories. i want to go back to comments from yesterday, saying that italy's draft budget of 2019 is not consistent with eu obligations, so the expectations is the eu will slam down hard

the italian budget proposal. >> yeah. the italian prime minister this morning, a few yards from where i'm standing now said he didn't agree with that. he said the budget was beautiful. he also was pained to point out there was no division between the coalition parties when it came to standing behind this budget i want to bring you comments he made a few moments ago >> i perfectly understand that the european commission was not expecting this budget. it's understandable that there will be reactions. i expect critical observations and we will begin negotiating. we will start today. moscovici is in rome to speak to tria i have spoken to jean-claude juncker and we will continue talking, following eu rules. >> in terms of brexit and the conversations last night about trying to break the deadlock over the northern ireland

border, it seems like there is now a vague acceptance that the transition period, the implementation period when trade negotiations will be going on after march 29th, 2019, that period could now be lengthened even theresa may has said this morning that she is open to the idea take a listen. >> we are working with european union to deal with this issue of ensuring that if there is a gap between the end of the implementation period and the point at which the future relationship comes in, we don't expect that gap to exist, but if there is, we want to make sure there's no hard border between northern ireland and ireland we put forward a proposal on how to deal with this. we are working to ensure not just that we are able to ensure no hard border between northern ireland and ireland, were such a gap in time to emerge, but to ensure that the implementation

period comes to an end on december 20th because we're able to put the future relationship into place at the end of the implementation period and ensure no hard border between northern ireland and ireland. >> it seemed that theresa may was at pains to minimize the period of time that would be required in order to bridge that gap, as she put it she said it would be a matter of months this matters a huge deal to members of her own conservative party because they see this as another extension of britain's remaining inside the european union. it would cost extra money. theresa may at pains there to point out she didn't expect this to happen. if it did happen it would be thanks to the flexibility of the european commission. >> so many different things to think about there. i will broaden out the

discussion and bring in carson nich nichol i think most people have not identified that this is just the withdrawal part of the process this is nothing to do with discussions about the future trade agreement. already it's proving to be tricky to find some agreement on the irish back stop. at the end of the day, it is a back stop, this is an insurance policy nobody is saying this is the path forward or this will set the terms of the future trading relationship why is there so much pushback? >> there is going to be exactly the sales pitch that theresa may's ultimately going to make in westminster she will say we have the withdrawal agreement it says this and that about the irish border that is not popular in domestic uk politics, but at the same time as a reassurance we have the outline of the future relationship that might give us the chance that two, three years down the line we don't need that back stop

the combination of the two is important for domestic politics. >> how important is it the emergency summit in november is being called off is the eu effectively saying we've given all we can do. we are not compromising. the rest is completely up to you, whether or not you can pitch this back home to your parliament, but we're not making any concessions. is that how you read it? >> we're not making con seconei as far as substance. we know with the withdrawal agreement and what the backstop will look like where the eu may be willing to compromise is the future relationship because that's crucial for selling the backstop at home. if you look at eu councils they only get called if there's something to discuss and decide. this government has put itself into a politically horrible position and i think we need to take this to the edge to move forward. >> that talk of taking it to the

edge is something that's coming up more and more eu leaders are talking about no-deal preparation. president macron produced a no-deal documentation the last few days more and more talk of no-deal. what would need to happen for us to go from this potential soft brexit, irish backstop solution to hard no deal? what is the sequencing >> disorderly brexit, that's all we're looking at even the brexit that will be negotiated will be a pretty hard brexit, at least for great britain if not for the entire uk i think the positive news this morning is that the november council has not been called in order to prepare for no-deal on the eu 27 side that's the key thing what we would need to see to get there is talks failing in december, special summit in january that fails, no-vote in westminster, then we're running out of options we're not there yet. >> coming back to the checkers

proposal, which does not seem to be loved by anybody, even if there is a modified proposal it's not guaranteed she will get this through parliament. so what happens in that situation? does it automatically lead to a leadership contest does she get replaced? will the tories call for general election is it in their benefit to do that >> on that front i would be careful given the political climate in this country from the tory side to go for an election. i don't see that the question is how does it go through westminster? probably not with a government majority could you envision a scenario where a couple of hard-core brexiteers say no, the dup says no, but you have a handful of labour mps who let this go through? this looks like the most likely outcome. >> how significant do you think is the budget coming up at the end of this month in terms of certain members? she needs the votes of certain key members of opposition

parties and the dup. how likely are those people to use the budget to get some extractions? >> i think it's positive we don't have progress towards the withdrawal agreement this morning because it enables her to bring the budget through in two weeks. after that we can have a conversation about the withdrawal agreement, that will be the part the dup doesn't like >> one very quick question for you. if you had to put a probability total on a no-deal brexit what would that be? >> i have been saying 40% for a while. i stick to that. >> close enough to 50% carson, thank you for joining us on "street signs" today. >> if you want to get involved in the conversation, tweet us t at @streetsignscnbc or tweet me directly at cnbcjou. fed policymakers say they will continue to raise interest

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federal reserve policymakers say they will stick to a path of gradual interest rate hikes to maintain a steady economy. fed officials also discussed pushing borrowing costs to restrictive levels in a bid to keep inflation from overshooting its target this as the monetary policy faces fierce criticism from donald trump leon cooperman said the market looks prepared for further interest rate hikes. >> the real interest rates today are zero the fed has been accommodatisaee the market can handle a rise in interest rates as long as the slope of the rise is gradual >> i'm bringing in lynn graham taylor is there anything that stood out to you from yesterday's minutes? >> the language going around

restrictive territory following powell's words about a week or two ago. it firmed up the feeling that we already knew about the dot plot, firming up the determination around the rate hike, future rate paths >> when they say they're willing to take it to restrictive territory, are we looking at 3.25, 3.5% >> i think obviously the terminal rate as per the forecast is around the 3.4 mark. you could say -- sorry, around 3.1 mark, rates to 3.4 mark, so rates around 3.25 is not a bad view >> looking at the language, they say they want to avoid an overshoot in inflation we're not seeing it. cpi is averaging 2%. core cpi is close to that number we're not seeing hints of inflation getting out of control. are they just being perhaps too trigger happy?

>> that's where we come from with our analysis of it. the fed will push the u.s. into recession by following this path >> you do think they'll push >> yeah. so we're very much of the view -- and we look at the trigger effectively of the flattening of the yield curve, even though when you adjust for qe, that's our trigger signal. >> yes, but crucially if you look at the yield curve we resteepened back in the last month or so. at one point we got to 20 basis points, now we're up at 30 it's telling this recent selloff is led by the intermediate belly part of the curve. >> for us, there's a few factors that led to that steepening of the curve. we see that flattening back. that's built into our view we see a term premium led move, more an uncertainty move than any certainty about higher growth and inflation >> do you think the fed will continue hiking even if they

think that it's going to end up inverting the yield curve? >> i think they will hike to the point -- we think they'll hike until they basically hit the point of no returns. in our view, that's a couple of rate hikes other people it's slightly more. we think they'll overhike, and then that leads to the next recession. >> what have you been advising clients to do? >> we like flattening. we have had this for a long time that's a view we like. twos tens flattening in the u.s. >> we just had the record budget numbers come out of the u.s. as well north of 7$700 million worth of deficit which has put a lot of strain on treasury issuance, budget issuance, it will continue for the foreseeable future does that not get factored into your assessment of where interest rates should end up >> it does we have to see the macro story about the increased supply so it's a demand story, and that

more than accounts for what's going on in the supply side. >> when you hear the likes of thu.s. president constantly criticizing the fed for whatever they're doing at this point in time they're doing the -- they're in the midst of a hiking cycle. the president has said he disagrees with that policy he doesn't think they should be hiking this much do you think at any point the fomc might take that into consideration? >> for the time being or for the foreseeable future, no plenty of people have talked about the need for independence. it's not the house view, even though it's what the president is saying. i tonight see the fed being impacted by what president trump is saying. >> one other thing that stru out to me from the minutes yesterday. it wouldn't have been mentioned, but we did have a lot of stock market turbulence in the last week so the fomc meeting was the week before they wouldn't have had time to

reference stock market volatility when we get moves like we have had in the dow and s&p lots of volatility there people getting afraid. there are some growing financial stability concerns are we likely to see powell likely come through with his powell put >> i think it's part of the picture that the fed built into the view what we've seen so far, they will easily be able to brush it off. this is the type of thing that happens in the stock market. if we got some sustained fall, a tightening in financial conditions, that would have to be taken into account. but not as of yet. >> lynn, thank you very much for joining me we'll be sitting down later today with former fed chairman alan greenspan to discuss the central bank's outlook for further rate increases that's at 13:30 cet. the u.s. has declined to

label china a currency manipulator, again deferring on a key trump campaign promise in its semiannual currency report the treasury department said no major trading partner l met the conditions to be labeled a currency manipulator the yuan has hit the lowest level since 2013 on the back of that report. many analysts say the next target could be 7 on that currency pair. the weaker yuan is said to be one of the key weapons in china's arsenal against the u.s., though beijing denies deliberately using its currency as a trade advantage the last bilateral discussions held in august ended with little progress secretary ross admitted talks were stalled but did not say they were deadlocked >> i'm not saying they are at an

impasse. we are where we are. in any negotiation there are ups and downs, hiatuses, and much more active periods. so it appears as though we may be in something of a hiatus now. >> hsbc is reportedlt to become the first foreign company to list on a mainland chinese stock exchange according to "the financial times" the banking giant is planning to list deposit rece t receipts on the bourse as part of a new link between the shanghai exchange. this will give the lender access to more chinese domestic investors. the london shanghai trading link is meant to go live at the end of this year coming up on the show, novartis announces a deal for a cancer drugmaker while raising its guidance more when we come back every call is different, so the only thing that we can do

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welcome to "street signs." i'm joumanna bercetche these are your headlines a tale of two sectors.

retail rebounds after strong results from carrefour while tech languishes as s.a.p. posts disappointing third quarter margins. >> german industrial gas group linde leaps to the top of th the stoxx 600 on the report that authorities will give the green light to the merger with american rival praxair novartis trades higher after it raises its outlook betting on its innovative drug outlooks the ceo tells cnbc the investments are bearing fruit. >> our innovation pipeline is delivering when you look at the filings with some cell and gene therapies, and filings of other upcoming launches, you get the sense that we have a strong growth profile building in our innovative medicines portfolio. >> and mixed messages on italy coming out of brussels austria's prime minister warns any overindebtedness is a danger for europe the european president says the eurozone can cope with rome's budget plans

we have more uk data this morning. today we have retail sales numbers that came out a couple minutes ago. we're looking at a number of 3% year-on-year versus the august print of 3.4, and expectations of 3.6 so a bit of a miss there when it comes to the september retail sales numbers. on a month on month basis, down 0 0.8%, weaker than the expectation of minus 0.4%, month on month a bit of weakness on the retail sales side it's been a mixed bag for retail sales. earlier we had strong numbers on back of the warmer weather and world cup. some of those effects are winding down that's the picture for sterling. trading back at around 1.31. let's look at other currencies euro trading a bit firmer, up

0.10%. still in that 0.11.14,.16 range we also got yen trading firmer as well versus the dollar. let's talk about european markets. we had a bunch of company earnings we're getting into the heart of earnings season. the picture has been positive so far. xetra dax is up about 40 points. cac 40 is up by a third of a point. the italian index nicely in the green. switching to u.s. futures. we had a bit of a mixed day yesterday. still negative for the three majors today we're looking to open up slightly negative as well. down about 9 points weaker nasdaq about two points weaker in the u.s. we also get retail sales as well. watch out for that

shares in unilever are lower after the anglo-dutch firm posted third quarter sales growth of 3.8%, missing expectations the company said revenue was hit by volume decline in argentina as well as negative currency effects. the ceo said the company was on track to meet its 2020 goals, but made no further comment on its consolidation plan, which was withdrawn earlier this month. andnestle has reported nine-month organic sales growth of 2.8% in line with estimates and confirmed its full-year guidance the swiss consumer goods giant posted positive growth in all categories, noting it is starting to see improved momentum in north america and in its infant nutrition division. julianna joins me to discuss these two stocks let's start with unilever. we're seeing weakness in that stock. they guided lower. he's also citing rising commodity prices as well

>> unilever trading down today heading into the results they had no room to disappoint. as you said in the introduction, unilever is coming off the back of abandoning their simplification plan. so the pressure from investors remains high on this company to deliver. 3.8% is below consensus expectation of 4.3% at the headline level the majority of that is coming through volumes. pricing has been more difficult. in the commentary following the results, they say pricing should start to come through in q4, as we've seen quarter after quarter these companies are struggling on the pricing front so unilever on the disappointing side nestle in contrast, a solid result the organic growth number is in line with expectations 2.9%, that was driven by higher pricing. >> the issue with nestle -- you and i were talking about this earlier. yes, organic growth came at

2.9%, this is a far cry from the high single digit numbers we had a couple years ago 2.9% is low. in this environment you really get the sense that this is a company that's trying to somehow reinvent itself or buy growth if it can't create it itself. >> certainly that's the struggle with nestle. they had an activist for quite some time in third point who has been pressuring them to accelerate the pace of change. portfolio change, portfolio optionality is a huge theme still for the company. they have been buying and selling assets just today they reminded the market of the various moves over the last year. the starbucks licensing deal we talked about that earlier they also pit up one of their key divisions for sale so they are making progress. the question is how patient will investors be and what is the sort of magnitude of change they're looking for. >> and if you look at the stock prices over the last three

months it hasn't done anything despite the starbucks announcement and selling off some of its businesses so definitely a company that you want to watch out for as well. another company that we've been focused on is novartis in the healthcare sector. shares are higher after it raised its full-year sales guidance thanks to strength in its psoriasis and arthritis drugs. th they see sales growing following a 3% rise in the third quarter novartis also announced they will buy cancer drugmaker endocyte in a deal worth 2$2.1 billion. >> the key here today for investors is guidance. the fact they have nudged up guidance this is where analysts were focusing net sales now expected to grow mid single digit versus previously guided to low to mid

single digit a nice upgrade there top line broadly in line and the core earnings were a beat. as you mentioned in your intro, the psoriasis treatment drug is a key growth driver. net sales for that drug were at 750 million. that's up from 701 million they also announced an acquisition in the u.s. bio pharma sector. we caught up with the ceo and asked how this factors into their strategy moving forward. >> we are looking for bolt-on acquisitions to build out our core therapeutic area or to enable us to have differential growth platforms, cell therapies, gene therapies, and radio therapies. when you look at our acquisitions, a gene therapy company, today we announced endocyte, this fits right within

the sweet spot of where we're looking for acquisitions >> that was the ceo talking about their strategy around doing further small bolt-on acquisitions novartis is in the process now of streamlining their business, trying to move away from being this big healthcare conglomerate to a more focused pharma and bio company. >> they have taken strategic decisions around that as well. let's bring in our next guest to talk about this more we talked about novartis in the past and the fact that the ceo comes from an r & d background and is gearing the company towards this pipeline. do you think this is a strategy that will pay off for them >> long-term i think it's the right move for novartis to make. it's highly strategic for them the whole thing is starting to make sense the announcement that alcon will

be spun off. the divestiture of the healthcare business, the option for that, and now these bolt-on acquisitions they're steadily refocusing the company much more towards innovative medicines and putting an r & d guy in charge is a good signal for that. >> if you look at share price performance versus competitors, it has been lagging over the last couple of years do you think that with the steps they're taking and some of the strategic measures they've announced on the business side things can turn around do you see potential for outperformance >> i think outperformance is a bit strong in a way they're like a lot of big pharmas. they've been flat for about four years, while the u.s. biotech index is just going crazy. all of the noise in the pharma biotech sector is in innovation, they're getting on top of that the challenge for the big pharma companies is they have to

commercialize this stuff i think when you look at some of the performance of this gene therapy, some of these advanced therapies that was talked about this morning, the commercial performance of those is yet to be proved. the first therapy for novartis, it sold 20 million in the last quarter. when you say big growth drivers, that's 1 billion in the quarter. it's a factor of 50 different. these long-term bets in these therapies are great for innovation in the industry, but we got to see the margins coming from them and it's going to take a while. >> i would like to touch on what's going on with u.s. drug pricing. hot topic for quite some time now. earlier this week u.s. regulators proposed new rules to require pharmaceutical panes to require drug pricing in tv ads how would this affect novartis

>> i think the whole pressure on u.s. pricing is something that's been started a year or two ago it's going to continue it's not going to be a disaster for the industry it's just not going to grow at the fantastic rates it has been growing in the past from a point of view of the shareholders, that is. so, yes, whether it's putting the prices on the ads or whatever the move is, most big pharmas are getting used to the fact that u.s. prices won't grow like they're used to hence the innovation bet by novartis which is to go for much more advanced therapeutics, where the pricing pressure is less intense because they're more niche, that means less revenue it's tough >> what does this mean all put together for consolidation in the sector we were talking about another sector that is going through consolidation. clearly the pharma sector. there's been some mega deals announced. novartis steered clear of some

of the big acquisitions and mergers and stuck to smaller bolt-on growth type strategies do you think that's the right thing for them to do are they missing out on some serious competition? >> absolutely the right thing to do focus is the name of the game in pharma the megamerger era is pretty much over now. even pfizer, one of the champions of it, is finding it too expensive. i don't expect megamergers now i see more bolt-on acquisitions. you have to pay for that, but that's where the acquisition action i think will happen in big pharma >> how much of an impact do you think the buyer acquisition of monsanto is having on investor appetite for novartis? you had a real pharma company after being a massive conglomerate now expanding into

agra chemicals >> i think people see novartis different from bayer bayer is plagying a different game novartis has chosen a different path they are doubling down on the innovative medicines business, put the alcon stuff up for sale. the santos part is interesting the generics business is not doing well that won't grow. so i think novartis is seen as a solid stock that is just making all the right moves. >> if i had to summarize i would say niche and high margin. >> innovation, niche and high margin i think is where novartis is going, and it will be risky >> john, thank you very much for joining us >> thank you

president trump says he does not want to abandon saudi arabia as authorities in ankara and riyadh continue investigations into the disappearance of journalist jamal khashoggi trump reiterated his hope that the kingdom's leaders were not involved in the incident secretary of state mike pompeo has been to riyadh and ankara this week and will deliver a full report to the president the turkish lira pulled back against the u.s. dollar after hitting the highest level in more than two months the currency was strengthening since last friday on hopes of improving ties between washington and ankara after turkey ruled to release a u.s. paster who was at the center of a geopolitical dispute between the two countries. mike pompeo has signaled some sanctions on turkey may be eased. coming up, don't miss our interview with the ceo of ericsson, borje ekholm

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rising sales of 5g equipment has boosted ericsson's earnings. they have made strong progress towards their financial targets. the ceo joins me on the line congratulations on what appears to be a strong quarter can you walk me through some of the he lights? >> thank you it's great to be with you. yes, we had a good quarter, in the third quarter. we continued execution on our focused strategy that we laid out year and a half ago. it is starting to yield the results. we can show we're making traction on that execution so we're very happy to report these results. still not good enough. we can do better that's why we're well on the way to reach the targets for 2020. >> i'm curious to hear more about your gross margins

they come in at 36.5% versus 26.9%. that's a big jump. this an environment of higher import costs many other companies have been talking about rising costs, rising prices. why are your margins expanding are you raising prices for consumers? >> we can see the strategy we laid out a year ago works. a cornerstone of the strategy was to increase investments in r & d, to develop better solutions to customers and also bring costs down of our products so the reason for the expanding gross margin is the investments we're making in r & d. that's what we see flowing through. in addition we have taken quite substantial costs out of our service delivery, and that's also helping gross margins

so the jump should be more seen as a confirmation that the strategy we set out works. >> you have been one of the companies that invested heavily if the rollout of 5g would you say ericsson has a competitive advantage in that space? >> we see strong momentum in the 5g market. and actually you already today are seeing commercial networks available in north america so 5g is not a buzzword anymore, it's reality it's happening we are well positioned in there. we continue to invest to provide customers with the best products to launch 5g as quickly as possible what i would like to highlight is our hardware, if you buy 4 g network from ericsson, our hardware is actually upgradeable

to 5g. it's easy for customers to launch 5g service as well. i would say that drives our competitive advantage. >> back in september you announced a 3$3.5 billion contract in the u.s. to support 5g deployment. it seems this could be the beginning of a trend where you do deals with other carriers and they can use your business support, systems, cloud services devices and everyone is happy. are you planning on doing more deals of this nature >> we hope so, of course it's critical for us to have a competitive portfolio. a competitive cost position. when we have that, that gives us the ability to win contracts that's what our business is about. i would say in the third quarter you saw that for the first time in several years, back to growing the top line

this is the only way for us to succeed long-term, but we only do that with a competitive product portfolio. >> thank you very much for taking the time to chat with us this morning. >> well womenly wembley stadium will not be sold adam has been following this story. >> there was an unsolicited offer for wembley stadium made by shahid khan. there were dissenting views from the outset not everyone was happy about wembley stadium, the home of english soccer, the home of the england football team, the home of the fa cup final being owned by one man, a private owner,

even though he made assurances he wasn't going to move fulham from their current home to wembley stadium in the future and whether or not that would effect sporting events due to take place there he has taken that off the table now calling it too divisive. >> we know the deal is off it has shed light on another issue, that is the state of the london football pitches. i was reading a couple things. it's interesting to me, as someone who occasionally watches football, you read about these very expensive tv broadcasting rights these football teams in the premier league are bringing in 4.5 billion pounds a season, yet only investing 24 million pounds in community facilities. the guardian this morning was saying two-thirds of grass pitches are inadequate for play. how come there's such a bad distribution of wealth going on in the soccer world? >> this is the problem for england having the biggest

league in the world as a product, as a global product the premier league's interests and the fa's interests on a multitude of interests are not always shared. it's not necessarily in the premier league's interest to have a successful england team and therefore even to have a core crop of english players they all want to have english players. there was a premium place on english players when they move between clubs, but at the same time premier league clubs are looking after their own interests. it's been a view of the people that didn't want sales to go through or think it was a better way to generate income for grassroots football that they should be sold through wembley stadium being sold they thought that, well, if the premier league clubs were just to allocate x amount, maybe 70 million each, bear in mind the amount of money you say they brought in, they could cover the sale of wembley. even if they spread that over three years.

people who didn't think this was a good idea got their wish the wider members of the f.a. counsel are looking at this and there are other ways of managing grassroots football. but whether or not a sale of wembley stadium in future could come back, khan said that is not off the table in the future, but it's all about generating money. >> a symptom of the problem, not a cause of the problem adam, thank you very much. before we head out, let's check on u.s. futures. looks as though dow will open up slightly in the green, up 14 points nasdaq up 4. watch out for u.s. retail sales coming up later. that is it for today's show. i'm joumanna bercetche "worldwide exchange" is coming up next. today is the day you're going to get motivated... get stronger... get closer. start listening today to the world's largest selection of audiobooks on audible. and now, get more. for just $14.95 a month, you'll get a credit a month good for any audiobook,

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it is 5:00 a.m here's your top five at 5:00 on a worldwide news day your money in china is sinking the u.s. turning up the heat the uk's brek front anxit frontr with a high stakes meeting getting under way. facebook says good old-fashione old-fashioned spammers are blamed for revealing your data. and the ceo of the world's biggest booze company is calling it good night. it's thursday, october 18,