unilever a link back some food.going into the health and these the business -- health and beauty business. they sold skippy peanut butter last year. selling ragu, not a big surprise. thoseet revenue out of two products. it is a big sale. 2.15? that is a little bit higher. let's talk slightly more broad context. we had disappointing purchasing managers index from france. and germany possibly is the ballast. >> we say no shock and france but the market was expecting expansion. it was certainly a disappointment in that regard. when you have gdp at zero percent, we were looking for a rebound in this quarter. the main pmi is showing a contraction. that is not pretty. germany, are they going to bail out the rest of the eurozone? you have pressure on them to have some more domestic consumption to help the rest of the eurozone. are they going to start doing that? germany doing something, the rest of the europe stumbling. what can the ecb do about it? what music at the market reaction, europe a little bit higher. the periphe

also coming up, unilever sells the sauce. find out why it is shedding ragu and bertolli. >> we will tell you about the tech trayvon protest against russia's role in ukraine. it is russia's biggest gathering of business leaders. this year is one of the most controversial. joins us from the st. petersburg international economic forum. you have been covering the summit and russia for over two decades. what is different this year? >> what is different is who isn't coming. what is interesting is why. you look at american ceos. they aren't coming this year because the white house told them to stay away. it is not just the u.s. ceos. a lot of european companies aren't coming. even international organizations. the ifc, the world bank, they are all staying away from this for him. there is a clear signal that the international community is trying to send through this business for them to president putin that if you want to go forward in ukraine, you will be isolated. this forum will give you a sense of what it will look like. some comp

unilever selling ragu for more than $2 billion. -- a japaneseapan group.they won't be making sauces. >> thanks that update from the business world. time fred daily roundup. be back in 10 minutes with more news and headlines. >> today, we are meeting the actress jessica chastain. three years ago, she was a relative unknown when she came here with the tree of life. they have been a firm fixture on the hollywood a-list. at the festival playing in the competition. a true passion project is also listed. >> very nice to meet you. off, it's all about it. , her parents met at the beatles concert. they fell in love. the father's last name was rigby so they made -- named their first child eleanor rigby. a beautiful relationship and eleanor is the product of that. >> how do you prepare for her role like this? >> i read some short stories in new york about men that have given me. in one recurring scene i found with women was the idea of reinvention. there is the idea of rebirth or wanting to start again. is definitely related to eleanor for me. >> it difficult and sen

and unilever is selling it's ragu and bertolli sauces to japan's mizkan group for $2 billion. ragu is the top selling pasta sauce in the u.s. the final flight of airtran airways is scheduled for december 28th. the low-cost airline was originally known as valujet-. but the names was changed following a merger and a notorious 1996 crash in the everglades. southwest airlines bought airtran in 2011 for $1.4 billion dollars. some airtran jets will join the southwest fleet-- others will be sold to delta. best buy reported an earnings shocker. that leads off this morning's earnings watch.. the electronics retailer topped wall street's expectation.. but warned sales will be light in the second and third quarters... and yet the stock closed 3 percent higher thrusday. sears revealed a $402 million dollar loss. revenues also drifted down with less month coming as more stores close. that stock rallied 4% and, dollar tree bagged a 3.6% rise in profit. however, the deep discount store's sales guidance for the year fell below estmates. still, shares edged up 6%. a simple office chair is beco

so we will have fantastic ceos likeeally walk this walk, paul pollman from unilever.ve companies in america like the gap or costco that are saying, we're not going to wait for government to tell us with the minimum wage should be. we are going to pay more than the minimum wage. what do they get out of that? they get a dedicated workforce and customers who feel proud tobuy there. there is a business reason for doing the right thing. thisw does this fit in to pfizer astrazeneca story, which of course, if it takes place today, could be the biggest taker -- >> hang on just one second. i pulled an excerpt from the op-ed on the deal from martin wall. if we could just pull it up. >> does this herald a sea change in thinking because moore has been thought about the research, the jobs them on the shareholders themselves? is this a very important seachange do you think? >> i think the resistance to the bit is telling us something about the way pfizer is viewed. pfizer is viewed as a company int does not invest enough rmb and not taking care of its future, and instead, is going

it's already been quietly already rolling out more video ads in recent weeks like this one for unilever'sove soap. here is the first ad for "diver "divergent." 5-second video spots placed at the top of news feeds but no soun unless directly clicked. facebook is adamant about maintaining user experience. but ads on instagram, what facebook calls image based story telling like this taco bell campaign. we've seen similar offerings from competitors like twitter which inked their own deal with publicis last year. this is perhaps in response to criticism that digital advertising is largely ineffective, facebook's also giving publicis unprecedented access to its data analystics. this deal is really -- not to mention the news about it rolling out in other countries is really a big step in the direction toward that broad video rollout. >> morgan brennan, thanks for that. >>> brian kelly, is there a trade off of this? >> i think if anything it is a short facebook on this. because they're giving out all their data to publicis. that tells me they don't know what to do with it. it is a problem interna

and small scale farmers and we've seen results, it's true as ox familiar will note, we worked with unilevero help them buy tea and helped dozens of local farmers especially women led farmer cooperatives grow vegetables and foods and reached nearly 2 million people in tanzania helping them move from a condition from being at the brink of poverty to being more self-sufficient. >> what about the broader critiques? we mentioned the "washington post" expose, billions lost on waste, they profiled ird, the biggest contractor and found a lot of overcompensation a couple they said received $4.4 million in salary and bonuses. do you think that kind of compensation is appropriate for aid contractors? >> it's important to note that piece in particular referred to a lot of activity between 2001 and 2008 -- >> this was between 2008 and 2012. >> actually the actual statistics they were referring to were a little bit earlier than that. here's the bottom line. when we took office we tripled our staffing in afghanistan and broke down large awards into small awards. for 2% of the cost of the war in afghanista

the time in london is 14 minutes past seven, breaking news from you no lever -- unilever. american businesses by the end of june. components reported sales and pretax profit. in for an exclusive conversation, the boss of this business. here.son is is that a fair description? >> technical information and technical product. >> tell me how the business is doing. sales improving, pretax trough it. how are things? >> everything is in the right direction. the current rating has improved as well. >> can you tell us anything about the state of the global economy act go now you are in 80 countries? you must have quite a good. . -- you must have quite a good pulse check. there is more confidence. it has been gradual. picking up and just generally getting better. it is much more global. japan is doing very well. asia, and europe is doing very well. we have, we are taking market share in the u.s. is strong. despite the fact we are seeing what many people described a sluggish recovery. that.e managing won the product and you've got to have it delivered. to people like us with strong ba

. >>> unilever is selling its north american pasta sauce brand rag goo and better tollly to a group in is worth $1.5 billion. >>> sergio marchionne asking potential buyers of fiat 500-e car not to buy the vehicle. they lose $14,000 each time they sell the 500-e. >>> marathon buying hess stations. it will expand marathon's operations from nine states to 23 states. >>> nest recalling 440,000 of internet connected smoke detectors to fix a problem with a software update. the smoke and cash cash detector is struggling with a glitch that can stop the alarm from sounding -- carbon monoxide. that is today's "speed read." [buzzer] david: right on time. if you're checking in at a hotel or at the airport, your travel reward points could face new taxes in the irs gets their way. liz: travel industry right away when they heard that sent a letter to treasury secretary jack lew arguing against the taxation proposal. let's get to rich edson live in d.c. they didn't like that at all. >> not all. the travel industry is lobbying against a significant threat of a new tax on their business. they explanatio

unilever selling its ragu and b bertoli's brands for $2 billion. that's a lot of ragu.s two factories in the united states. spartan stores upgraded from buy to hold. the firm also increasing its price target to $25 from $20. sue? >>> time for a fear factor edition of "the power rundown" today. joining us from the cme, jim yuro and jeff killberg. good to see you guys. the vix sitting at a year-to-date low, down more than 13%. so, you know, jeff, let me start with you. is this a good time to buy insurance, perhaps? how would you do it? >> sue, i think it is. i think you want to buy when you can. the vix, like you said, has been beaten up on the playground back in the day. it's the fed. the ecb, bank of japan. i think right now we don't like the volatility. they lack correlation. we utilize our proprietary index. go to the cnbc website and search it there. that's a way to get long volatility. it's important, sue. i think that modern-day portfolio of 60/40, i think you need to own volatility to dampen it moving it forward. >> jim, though, you do like an etf to play it. >> y

most of those are coming out of the top 350 advertisers in the world. , unilever, png.uct that stands apart from the rest of the world. it is focused on the moment, focused on social interaction, where we are offering a platform for those brand advertisers to do that great, creative brand advertising. the kind of stuff that people get into the ad industry to do. >> the criticism is that tom still needs tolr make money for yahoo!. when is the business model coming? >> it has been growing for the asked year and a half. most have joined in the last six months. >> how much money are you making now versus a year ago? having a report shortly. it is tied into yahoo!'s earning future. we are not even 10 months into time with yahoo!. we are excited about how the businesses scaling. we are a little ways ways from talking about the contribution to yahoo!. how does you go from being the creator and the ceo of that company to the guy you are today, who sounds enthusiastic about advertising? >> we launched our ad business at the time of the acquisition. that was a big part of the con

unilever, [ inaudible ] all being motivated by one thing, you cannot win against the convinceal supermarketst, mass. these companies are in the end all prey. >> not as a predator. >> global business. you can see conceivably, at very high multiples here, another bidder, i don't know, but my point is it's a global business. the key here, by the way, in the m&a side is, can they effectively hillshire get out of their pinnacle deal now as opposed to waiting for a shareholder vote either pay the breakup fee or do something to allow their bankers to move into full auction mode? >> don't forget pinnacle has a good yield, well run company, bird's eye a good business, duncan hines okay, and tyson, the price of grain has plummeted. union pacific on last night, the most bountiful year for corn. what do chicken eat? when i raised chicken, giving them corn, a fox ripped off their necks didn't bother to eat the rest of the chicken. what waste. >> foxes tend to do that. >> speaking of chicken i have poppy's. i pronounce it poppy's because i'm from philadelphia. most pronounce it popeyes. the louisiana kitc

i represent sony, siemens, basf, nestlÉ, unilever. so they are very diverse.companies in a recent survey said quality of infrastructure was one of the top factors in choosing a location for investments. and it's not a coincidence that as the quality of u.s. infrastructure has declined, so has our share of global cross-border investment. so in 2000, the u.s. 137% of all cross-border investment. in 2012 it is 17%. other countries are getting their act together. to our improving the infrastructure among other things. and in order -- >> where are those companies going, do you think what is not looking at the united states, who are biggest competitors in terms of infrastructure and resources? what are the other options if you're a big global company to say united states crumbling, i'm going to go to x or y? >> i would just jump in and say obviously china is making huge investments. they have a long way to go but we did a study at the council with deloitte looking at what global ceos around the world think about manufacturing competitiveness. in terms of infrastruct

. >>> unilever is selling its ragu pasta sauce business. you still use ragu? >> no. >> the sorkins are. sold that business to a japanese condiments maker for more than $2 billion. >> silver pallet although i like paul newman's own. >> speaking of condiments -- >> yes. >> do you know when a lot of people like to smoke? >> after -- >> 6:07 in the morning. >> after meals. >> what are you saying. >> oh. >> what were you going to say? >> in movies people do something -- there could be kids watching. >> you don't know that i set this, like a mine field for you. >> i was talking about ragu sauce. >> do you smoke after -- it depends on how quickly -- >> back to tomato sauce. >> he's actually apologizing. >> they prevailed over rivals, including hormel. hormel lost on this month's long auction of the ragu brand. divestiture of the ragu brand follows the sale of skippy peanut butter and wish bone salad dressing. >> condiments are ketchup and mustard. it's for meals. that's why i don't know why you -- >> i know, i know. >> no one believes your innocence. >> no, they don'

kraft coca-cola pepsi competitor code next nestle procter and gamble general mills kellogg's mars unilever and johnson and johnson together have a stranglehold on the american consumer. meanwhile over the retail industry wal-mart and target along with big box stores like home depot and best buy control of huge portions of the american retail industry you can basically pick any industry in america and see the monopolistic characteristics and that's why we should pass a law a new version of the sherman act that says explicitly that whenever a company reaches a point where they have more than a certain percentage of the marketplace say ten or fifteen percent and they can't grow any larger in that domain they have to leave room for startups for innovators most importantly for competitors there was a time in america when nearly every business and every main street or strip mall was locally own buy locally by local families they paid well they took care of their employees their great customer service the anti-trust laws kept the big boys at bay for over a century there was even a t.v. show that