sebastien bazin, accor hotels chairman and ceo joining us. barclays has reported earnings.joins us now, barclays ceo. great to have you on the program, as always. i know you want to tell me how well the business has done in your view. but also update me on what has been happening since january. more volatility in the market may have added opportunity for you? we: very quickly, on 17, closed with profit before tax up 10%, which we are comfortable with. the big news was week ended restructuring of the bank. no more assets we are looking to sell, no more businesses we are looking to close. we begin 2018 with a clean operating model, the first time in five years for barclays. also, we closed 17 with a very strong capital position, 13.3%, above our target and the first time we have done that in a long time. what that is going to enable 18 we plan for a dividend of 6.5 pence for our shareholders, more than double what we paid in 2016 and 2017, so we feel good about that. the markets are right. the first part of january and february, volatility came back, as some of us thought it

the deal is worth 4.4 billion euros and accor says it will help them compete with airbnb and online travel agencies i will speak to the ceo in a few hours. stay tuned for that. >>> back to the u.s., fed chair jay powell says the economy is powering forward in his first appearance before congress he was confident that inflation is on the way to hitting the fed's 2% target and supportive of a gradual rate hiking path. he also said the fed is carefully watching the tax cuts and more stimulative fiscal policy some investors are pricing in four rate hikes rather than the three seen in the fed's most recent projection, in part because of comments like this one. >> what we've seen is incoming data that suggests a strengthening in the economy continuing strength in the labor market some data that will, in my case, add some confidence to my view that inflation is moving up to target we've also seen continued strength around the globe and we've seen fiscal policy become more stimulative i think each of us is going to be taking the developments between -- since the december meeting into account and w

credit agricole assurances joined forces to purchase an initial 55% stake in at core -- accor invest.he conference is underway and matt miller is on the ground in berlin and joined by our guest. good morning. matt: good morning. i am here at kathleen bacon but here in berlin for the super return conference. i want to focus on an issue that we had bloomberg cap been focusing on a lot more recently which is women in the industry. your industry, the private equity industry has an underrepresentation of women. we were discussing only -- earlier only 9% of private equity employers are women. how can that be changed? let's talk about why it should be changed. we are a multitrillion dollar business. the fact that only 9% of the owners of these assets, the managers who are making the difference are women is clearly wrong. enhances performance, enhances decision-making, enhances change. the fact that we have so few women in this industry i strongly believe needs to change. people like myself, who are contriving capital to these private equity firms need to influence the firms to make that chan

arabia's public investment fund gic sovereign wealth and others joined forces to purchase a 55% stake in accornvest. ] that is your bloomberg business flash. gdp out ahead of estimates, that is the preliminary number coming through the fourth quarter. spending in january worse than anticipated at -1.9. the market was looking for a year on year number of 1.1. the data looks pretty shabby on the consumer side. cpi number is weaker as well. i will give you the harmonized number at 1.2%. data on the gdp front looking a little bit better but some of the other data points are a little worse than anticipated. let's talk about some of the other data we can talk about this morning. china's manufacturing gauge fell that most in five years. markets abroad have combined to as the worst seng performing index at 9%. i want to talk about this data. can i look through this data because there are effects, the learner year, do i need to look through this or can i say that this data is as bad as it looks at a headline level? >> it is tempting to say you could look through it. there are impacts from the big year

growth trying to take advantage of large cap tech companies that we thought were oversold we like accor, it's a play on better european growth through reforms in france. you have a play on the move from products to experiences for millennials and they're going asset light which protects them against the non-traditional competitors so across our international portfolios, we really like that. >> got it, jeff, steve, thanks so much for joining us, much appreciated. >> you bet. >> thank you. >>> the weekly rig counts just came out eric chemi has a report. >> the latest oil rig count numbers are in with drillers adding rigs to the fourth consecutive week rig counts rose to a total of 798 and they're up by 201 from a year ago oil touched lower than just before the numbers came out. you can see on the board up about half a percent on the day. >> api reporting 10.2 million barrels a day, we are drilling, baby, drilling eric, thank you very much. >>> a big move from washington causing a big move at a group of stocks nucor, u.s. steel and alcoa jumping on the back of the new recommendations for t

investors, including saudi arabia's public investor fund, join forces to purchase an initial 55% stake in accord amazon has agreed to purchase ring for $1 billion. jpmorgan advised ring on the sale. this move health amazon expand further into the consumer market, including providing security for package deliveries. amazon has been pushing for a bigger presence in homes through connected devices, such as the echo smart device with the assistant known as "alexa." francine: eight british party makers have back in ed an amendment to reverse her policy, which could threaten political survival. this could be enough to wipe out may's slim working majority in the house of commons. a number of lawmakers who want britain to remain in the customs union have risen in racent days. joining us for more is mark burgess and mike bell from jpmorgan. welcome to the program. first of all, for all of our viewers, if you have a moment to spare, just subscribe to our brexit bulletin. today, especially, it is brilliant. you put in the title, boxing at home may fight in brussels. that sums it up. she is having a tough

pillars, the plan could provide the only viable pathway to it in a court ahead d- two in accord -- to an accorhead of the march 5 deadline. if you go to the axial's website, a story that was posted about eight hours ago including the president talking about what he was seeking when it comes to immigration, saying that he would threaten a veto if all of those pillars were not met. this is the website, saying it was a senior administration official on tuesday that said the president "will veto any advance hises not commonsense immigration reforms, a hardening of the white horse -- immigration reforms," a hardening of the white house position as the senate begins .nd early debate the president is laying down a marker. he will not approve a squishy bill that will most likely come out of the senate. again, the senate deliberates on issues concerning immigration in an effort to pass immigration bill this week. we want to get your thinking on what should be the final products, whether it means keeping to the president's principles, what he was looking for, meaning a compromise position on those princ