12/01/2017 BBC Business Live


12/01/2017

Similar Content

Browse content similar to 12/01/2017. Check below for episodes and series from the same categories and more!

Transcript


LineFromTo

will be sunny but cold, feeling particular cold down those North Sea

:00:00.:00:00.

coasts given we could have some severe gales.

:00:00.:00:07.

This is Business Live from BBC News with Sally Bundock

:00:08.:00:10.

The director of the US Office of Government Ethics has sharply

:00:11.:00:14.

criticised Donald Trump's plan to hand his global business empire

:00:15.:00:16.

to his sons before he becomes president of the world's biggest

:00:17.:00:19.

Live from London, that's our top story on Thursday 12th January.

:00:20.:00:33.

From boardroom chief to commander-in-chief.

:00:34.:00:35.

Trump hands control of his business empire to his sons.

:00:36.:00:39.

But ethical questions will remain for America's

:00:40.:00:41.

Plus - "I apologize to the South Korean people".

:00:42.:00:51.

Samsung boss Jay Y Lee is questioned in a growing corruption scandal.

:00:52.:01:01.

Markets in Europe are all headed lower again today. We talk you

:01:02.:01:11.

through the change in sentiment. Can artificial intelligence predicts the

:01:12.:01:14.

best way to reach you as a consumer? We will speak to an advertising

:01:15.:01:19.

expert who thinks the answer is yes. Cinema chains are reporting record

:01:20.:01:23.

ticket sales. Is it a movie for you in the comfort of your own home, or

:01:24.:01:27.

do you still love going to the pictures? What draws you to the big

:01:28.:01:33.

screen? Let us know using this hashtag.

:01:34.:01:41.

Welcome to the programme. If you're wondering where is the person

:01:42.:01:50.

playing the piano in the cinema, you are definitely showing your age!

:01:51.:01:53.

We are in the US, where President-elect Donald Trump has

:01:54.:01:56.

been dismissing claims Russia holds compromising material on him,

:01:57.:01:58.

The row has even threatened to overshadow controversy over

:01:59.:02:01.

Mr Trump's business dealings, and concerns he will face a major

:02:02.:02:04.

conflict of interest once in the White House.

:02:05.:02:07.

On Wednesday he said he'd hold onto his business empire,

:02:08.:02:10.

but hand "complete control" to his two eldest sons,

:02:11.:02:12.

But in the last few hours, the head of US Office

:02:13.:02:17.

of Government Ethics has sharply criticised the plan,

:02:18.:02:19.

saying it does not match the "standards" of US presidents

:02:20.:02:23.

So will it be enough to silence the critics?

:02:24.:02:31.

The Trump Organization is not listed on the stock market, so it doesn't

:02:32.:02:34.

But according to private company research firm Privco,

:02:35.:02:40.

the real estate, hotel and leisure empire made revenues

:02:41.:02:42.

According to Bloomberg, as well as billions in assets,

:02:43.:02:52.

the organisation has some $600 million of debt, owed to scores

:02:53.:02:56.

Another potential source of conflict.

:02:57.:03:01.

And it employs an estimated 22,000 people in more than 20

:03:02.:03:05.

countries, raising questions over foreign policy.

:03:06.:03:11.

But Mr Trump's lawyer says "no new foreign deals will be made

:03:12.:03:14.

She says over 30 pending deals have been cancelled,

:03:15.:03:23.

instantly losing the family millions of dollars.

:03:24.:03:27.

And an ethics advisor will be appointed to approve all dealings

:03:28.:03:30.

that might raise conflict of interest concerns,

:03:31.:03:34.

or be seen to exploit the office of the presidency.

:03:35.:03:42.

Tom Packer, Fellow at Rothermere American Institute, joins us now.

:03:43.:03:50.

Great to have you with us. Thank you for coming in. The leader of

:03:51.:03:59.

America's ethics pretty much slams the Trump plans to split from the

:04:00.:04:05.

business. The Donald Trump go far enough? Obviously all positions are

:04:06.:04:11.

somewhat politicised in the United States. One wouldn't necessarily

:04:12.:04:15.

take that as handed down on tablets from Mount Sinai. The fact is, the

:04:16.:04:21.

usual procedures for most senior American roles would require more of

:04:22.:04:25.

a separation than Mr Trump has done so far. With all of this, this is

:04:26.:04:32.

unprecedented, right? Having a billionaire, if you will, in the

:04:33.:04:36.

office. We've had millionaire presidents but, somebody like that

:04:37.:04:39.

he's got so much business interest... It is unprecedented in

:04:40.:04:45.

the history of modern conflicts of interest legislation. JFK's family

:04:46.:04:50.

would arguably be even richer than Donald Trump, that was the early

:04:51.:04:54.

1960s and people didn't worry about that at the time. The last few

:04:55.:04:58.

presidents have been solid millionaires, not billionaires. The

:04:59.:05:02.

sheer level of economic interest has been much less. What happens now?

:05:03.:05:07.

The head of the ethics committee is saying this isn't going far enough.

:05:08.:05:13.

There's a lot of criticism about his decision in the press, he's not

:05:14.:05:17.

going to change that, is he? I think in the short term they will follow

:05:18.:05:21.

but they were talking about. I would be interested to see who this ethics

:05:22.:05:25.

adviser is, how dependent they are on Mr Trump, how much experience

:05:26.:05:29.

they have. It might become a controversial issue. He might come

:05:30.:05:33.

under more pressure. Particularly as he fell out with Congress,

:05:34.:05:36.

particularly if he fell out with both parties in Congress, he might

:05:37.:05:39.

find some legislation coming along that makes this harder. At the

:05:40.:05:46.

moment I don't see what they are going to use to force him to go

:05:47.:05:49.

further than he already has. For those of us watching yesterday,

:05:50.:05:52.

waiting to see more meat on the bones in terms of economic policies

:05:53.:05:56.

from Trump, very disappointed, right? The policy was overshadowed

:05:57.:06:03.

by the controversies. One thing to look caveat is Paul Ryan, speak of

:06:04.:06:08.

the house. What is he going to stop prioritising? Never underestimate

:06:09.:06:15.

how much it is Congress driving the agenda economically. I suspect they

:06:16.:06:21.

will be prioritising tax reform, changing Obamacare. I think Paul

:06:22.:06:24.

Ryan will be more important over the next few months in what dominates

:06:25.:06:26.

the headlines economically. Thank you. Shortly we will talk about

:06:27.:06:33.

impact on financial markets of that press conference, because it is

:06:34.:06:38.

still having reverberations around the world even today. Now some of

:06:39.:06:40.

the other stories making the headlines around the world.

:06:41.:06:43.

Austria's Chancellor, Christian Kern, has said he'll ask

:06:44.:06:45.

the European Union to let local employers hire Austrians before

:06:46.:06:47.

other EU citizens, unless there are no suitable candidates.

:06:48.:06:50.

He said incomers from eastern Europe were putting pressure

:06:51.:06:52.

India's Foreign Minister has criticised online retail giant

:06:53.:06:56.

Amazon after its Canadian website was found to be selling doormats

:06:57.:06:58.

Sushma Swaraj tweeted that Amazon should withdraw

:06:59.:07:06.

the "insulting" products, or else current visas for Amazon

:07:07.:07:09.

That India demands an Amazon apology is actually on the Biz website. Also

:07:10.:07:34.

China and Bitcoin. We were talking about Bitcoin just last week. The

:07:35.:07:40.

best performing currency in the world, it was, hitting 1000 bucks.

:07:41.:07:49.

It's an online currency. But it doesn't exist, you know what I mean.

:07:50.:07:56.

The country's Central bank said it wanted to investigate market

:07:57.:07:59.

manipulation, money-laundering and unauthorised financing. This has

:08:00.:08:04.

sent the currency more 16% lower. Virtual currency, that's what it is.

:08:05.:08:09.

Now the defacto boss of Samsung has been questioned

:08:10.:08:11.

Lee Jae-Yong isn't just any executive.

:08:12.:08:19.

He is heir to a powerful business dynasty, the grandson

:08:20.:08:23.

He's already given evidence to politicians about the scandal,

:08:24.:08:27.

but this is the first time he's faced questioning as a suspect.

:08:28.:08:30.

Lots of apologies, but not much said about the actual act, any

:08:31.:08:44.

wrongdoing, no admitting to doing things wrong. Lots of apologies.

:08:45.:08:49.

It's that kind of classic apology, I'm very sorry, for trusting people

:08:50.:08:58.

too much. In the case of Jay Y Lee, for sending out a bad image. It's

:08:59.:09:03.

become a classic political apology where you don't admit any kind of

:09:04.:09:07.

wrong doing yourself. Everybody in this scandal is saying, I've not

:09:08.:09:11.

broken the law, and the prosecutor is now fingering some very important

:09:12.:09:16.

collars indeed. Including Jay Y Lee, the heir apparent to Samsung. His

:09:17.:09:24.

dad has been seriously ill for two years, now. He is the man at the top

:09:25.:09:29.

of Samsung, and he could face serious criminal charges. The nub of

:09:30.:09:37.

this allegation, which they deny, is that Samsung paid a lot of money to

:09:38.:09:42.

two companies controlled by the best friend of the President of the

:09:43.:09:47.

country. In return, the allegation is, Samsung got the votes of the

:09:48.:09:53.

national pension fund to back a big change inside. That's the

:09:54.:09:57.

allegation, everybody is apologising, everybody is denying

:09:58.:10:06.

wrongdoing. Thank you very much. Markets were reacting to that press

:10:07.:10:09.

conference from Donald Trump. The dollar falling for a second day.

:10:10.:10:14.

Today, Japanese stocks sliding. The yen getting stronger. The fact there

:10:15.:10:21.

was very scant detail on policy, not helping business leaders around the

:10:22.:10:27.

world. The losers are the drug makers worldwide, partly because of

:10:28.:10:31.

what he had to say. Let's look at Europe now. We've had more news out

:10:32.:10:37.

big retailers like Tesco and Marks and today. We've got gold advancing,

:10:38.:10:44.

or oil retreating. That's what's happening in general. A sentiment

:10:45.:10:48.

change on markets, it's all been about games going up and up. We'll

:10:49.:10:53.

talk some more in a moment about that.

:10:54.:10:56.

And Michelle Fleury has the details about what's ahead

:10:57.:10:58.

The Trump rally has pushed stocks to new highs. How enduring is it? We

:10:59.:11:07.

may soon find out. Financial companies had been among the big

:11:08.:11:10.

beneficiaries. Several of them turning their profit figures on

:11:11.:11:13.

Friday. Other companies are reporting ahead of that including

:11:14.:11:20.

Delta Airlines 's, scheduled to report its fourth-quarter results

:11:21.:11:24.

before the market open this Thursday. Wall Street investors are

:11:25.:11:28.

looking for higher revenues but also higher costs, a trend that has been

:11:29.:11:33.

seen across the industry. Meanwhile several Federal reserve officials

:11:34.:11:36.

are also speaking this Thursday, starting with Janet Gillen. She is

:11:37.:11:41.

talking to educators from across the country. Several of the regional Fed

:11:42.:11:45.

presidents will also be talking about US economic outlook, including

:11:46.:11:47.

James Bullitt. Joining us is Jessica Ground, UK

:11:48.:11:51.

Equities Fund Manager at Schroders. Great to have you. Let's start with

:11:52.:12:06.

the conference yesterday from Trump. Disappointed for those of us looking

:12:07.:12:10.

for more economic policy. What was interesting is he was still only

:12:11.:12:13.

eight days away from becoming President, and will still prepared

:12:14.:12:17.

to stand there globally and publicly, pretty much picking on

:12:18.:12:22.

sectors and actually naming certain corporations he wasn't happy with.

:12:23.:12:26.

It felt like a continuation of the election campaign in some ways.

:12:27.:12:28.

Light on policy. The pharma sector, drug pricing has been

:12:29.:12:44.

a hot issue now for a while following the back of a number of

:12:45.:12:50.

significant increases. The drugs companies took a hit after that.

:12:51.:12:55.

Unsurprisingly, the American market is an incredibly profitable one.

:12:56.:13:01.

It's the largest global health care market. He was pretty clear on

:13:02.:13:05.

looking at pricing and really expecting a better deal from the

:13:06.:13:08.

companies, so starting to come under pressure there. Janet Yellen and

:13:09.:13:17.

speaking later today. The head of the US Federal reserve, sorry. She

:13:18.:13:30.

is talking and she is equally as not across stuff as we are in terms of

:13:31.:13:34.

what he's going to do next. He's also been a reasonable critic of

:13:35.:13:39.

her. I think the focus she will keep it on will be the park for

:13:40.:13:44.

interest-rate rises in the US. That will really be what people are

:13:45.:13:48.

looking at. The dollar being the reserve currency and a feeling of

:13:49.:13:52.

how much does the Fed feel they should be tightening, and over how

:13:53.:13:59.

long. Are you going to come back and take us through some of the papers,

:14:00.:14:04.

shortly. The dollar took a bit of a hit, too. Down today for a second

:14:05.:14:10.

day in a row. Coming up, is artificial intelligence smart enough

:14:11.:14:13.

to predict your tastes as a consumer? You're watching business

:14:14.:14:20.

live from BBC News. If you are watching in the UK, there is no

:14:21.:14:24.

break which may come as a relief. We going to talk about the retail

:14:25.:14:27.

stories in the UK. It's a bumper day of retail results,

:14:28.:14:31.

with news from the likes of Marks and Spencer,

:14:32.:14:34.

John Lewis, Tesco, Waitrose, After results from Morrison's

:14:35.:14:36.

and Sainsbury's this week, and disappointing results from Next

:14:37.:14:39.

last week, we now have a good idea how our retailers

:14:40.:14:42.

did over Christmas. Theo Leggett is in our business

:14:43.:14:43.

newsroom, and he's been Quite a few out today to tell us

:14:44.:14:55.

their numbers over Christmas. A lot of numbers up today and far too many

:14:56.:14:59.

for me to go through one by one. Let's look at some of the big ones

:15:00.:15:03.

to begin with. Let's start with Tesco. It took the last quarter of

:15:04.:15:06.

the year and the Christmas period together, over that period, its

:15:07.:15:13.

like-for-like sales rose 14%. Not a bad performance although it tailed

:15:14.:15:16.

off a bit in the Christmas week compared to last year. Food sales

:15:17.:15:20.

did pretty well but what's interesting to me is that clothing

:15:21.:15:25.

sales were up 4.3%. You mentioned we had a trading statement from Next

:15:26.:15:32.

last week. Retailers like Next have been struggling a bit but its

:15:33.:15:35.

statement showed a big increase in clothing sales.

:15:36.:15:43.

Tesco's results look positive on the surface, but the markets don't seem

:15:44.:15:49.

that impressed, their shares are down this morning. Moving on, let me

:15:50.:15:53.

show you this, this is what has happened to Marks Spencer's share

:15:54.:15:57.

price this morning, up something like 8% at the opening, they have

:15:58.:16:02.

tailed off little bit, but still up 3%. That looks like investors are

:16:03.:16:06.

going through the nitty-gritty of what they were saying. So what were

:16:07.:16:09.

they so pleased about first thing in the morning? Sales were up for the

:16:10.:16:15.

group as a whole 5.9%, 4.3% if you strip out the effects of currency

:16:16.:16:20.

fluctuations. Food sales again did very well, but also an increase in

:16:21.:16:21.

clothing sales, an area where Marks clothing sales, an area where Marks

:16:22.:16:27.

Spencer has really suffered over the past few years. But something

:16:28.:16:31.

else I find very interesting, sales in its international stores were up

:16:32.:16:39.

19%, a good form but don't forget that Marks Spencer is in the

:16:40.:16:43.

process of closing a lot of its international stores. I know you

:16:44.:16:47.

love a good spike on your board there, amazing!

:16:48.:16:53.

You're watching Business Live, our top story:

:16:54.:16:56.

The director of the US Office of Government Ethics

:16:57.:16:59.

Trump's plan to hand his global business empire to his sons,

:17:00.:17:04.

before his inauguration on 20th January.

:17:05.:17:10.

He is handing control of the company, not giving up the company

:17:11.:17:14.

himself. Hanging on with all his might! A

:17:15.:17:22.

quick flash at the markets again, Sally was explaining what was going

:17:23.:17:26.

on, a bit of red, we have had record after record on Wall Street and in

:17:27.:17:30.

London. Advertising has always been

:17:31.:17:33.

an industry about embracing change and looking for new ways

:17:34.:17:35.

of selling things. Advertisers have also always

:17:36.:17:39.

known a lot about us and now the industry

:17:40.:17:42.

is using artificial intelligence The7stars is one agency making use

:17:43.:17:49.

of this new direction. It's one of the UK's most successful

:17:50.:18:06.

and largest independent with clients that include Virgin EMI

:18:07.:18:08.

Records, Habitat and Nintendo. Jenny Biggam is one of the big

:18:09.:18:12.

brains in the industry. She's co-founder of independent

:18:13.:18:15.

media agency the7stars. Nice to see you, Jenny!

:18:16.:18:31.

Can I just... Just researching and looking at some of the details, when

:18:32.:18:34.

you started, you just thought of doing stuff not normally, a bit

:18:35.:18:43.

radical? You got rid of job titles the whole holiday forms, your

:18:44.:18:45.

workers don't need to fill out forms, they just go on holiday for

:18:46.:18:51.

as long as they want. Really?! Why did you go down that path? We set

:18:52.:18:59.

the agency up in 2005, and it was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to

:19:00.:19:02.

set up a business of your own, you so you start with a blank piece of

:19:03.:19:06.

paper. One of the things we thought really hard about was what kind of

:19:07.:19:09.

employer we wanted to be, how we could do things differently. So we

:19:10.:19:16.

put in place lots of different things about better come with our

:19:17.:19:23.

team, treating them as a team, not departments, not breaking things

:19:24.:19:26.

down into silos. The holiday form was something we started up when

:19:27.:19:31.

three or four were sitting in the office, saying, we will just tell

:19:32.:19:34.

each other when we will were going away. That is quite liberating, so

:19:35.:19:38.

we extended it as we brought in more. Do your big-name clients not

:19:39.:19:51.

have a problem if you scoot off on holiday? The holiday thing works

:19:52.:19:57.

pretty much as it would anywhere else, they will hand over their work

:19:58.:20:01.

to a colleague. Are not as easy as it sounds. The only thing we don't

:20:02.:20:06.

do is keep counting the numbers, that is what we take away. What is

:20:07.:20:14.

the longest amount of leave that an employee has taken? Do you know, or

:20:15.:20:18.

do you not count? People, if they are going on a honeymoon or doing

:20:19.:20:23.

something big, they take a little bit longer. See you in six months!

:20:24.:20:29.

How difficult is it to remain independent in the world, the media

:20:30.:20:34.

world that we live in today? It is less difficult now for us, when we

:20:35.:20:39.

first set up, it was more difficult, because we had challenges around how

:20:40.:20:43.

you by media when you do not have the scale to negotiate with, things

:20:44.:20:48.

like that, but we are now pretty established as a big independent

:20:49.:20:53.

agency, and you know, that is still quite different in the part of the

:20:54.:20:55.

industry that we work in, so creative agencies, there is a lot of

:20:56.:21:00.

start-ups, a lot of innovation in that part of the market. Talk us

:21:01.:21:06.

through this issue of artificial intelligence, to what extent it will

:21:07.:21:09.

help you help clients sell stock. Yeah, so I suppose from our point of

:21:10.:21:16.

view, if someone has... You're been talking about retail, and if someone

:21:17.:21:24.

has bought a pair of shoes, it is important that we understand what

:21:25.:21:27.

motivated that purchase, why they picked that product, that brand,

:21:28.:21:31.

that retailer. In order to understand that, you have to unpick

:21:32.:21:37.

the whole communications channel. So can a I'd do that? A human being

:21:38.:21:41.

could never even get close, there would be no way of doing that, but

:21:42.:21:46.

an algorithm, particularly in digital communications, can start to

:21:47.:21:50.

unpick the effect of different limitations on that customer

:21:51.:21:56.

journey? We talk about AI a lot in the field of technology, in the life

:21:57.:22:03.

we lead, do you think this is the part that advertising will go down?

:22:04.:22:08.

It is really important because advertisers are demanding more

:22:09.:22:11.

accountability, to understand how millions of pounds are being spent

:22:12.:22:16.

and where they are getting the biggest fact, so when you are making

:22:17.:22:19.

big decisions with other people's money, it is important to put in

:22:20.:22:24.

place every single technique that you can. Fascinating! We have run

:22:25.:22:29.

out of time. If you could get at the visual intelligence together is more

:22:30.:22:32.

time on the programme, I will pay you for that! -- artificial

:22:33.:22:35.

intelligence. In a moment, we'll take a look

:22:36.:22:40.

through the business pages, but first here's a quick reminder

:22:41.:22:42.

of how to get in touch with us. Apparently more of us are going to

:22:43.:22:49.

the cinema in quite some time, we have been asking why.

:22:50.:22:54.

The business life page is somewhere where you can stay a head with all

:22:55.:23:09.

the breaking news. -- Business Live. Get involved on the web page on the

:23:10.:23:11.

BBC website. We all got caught there, didn't we?!

:23:12.:23:34.

Jessica is back, take us through the papers.

:23:35.:23:39.

We had a much-needed chat about robots, MEPs, politicians in Europe

:23:40.:23:46.

voting on robots and whether a kill swap is required. You read that

:23:47.:23:52.

headline and think, what does that mean?! I think it is quite

:23:53.:23:56.

forward-looking of the European Parliament, recognising that there

:23:57.:24:02.

will be more robots working alongside humans, and it is trying

:24:03.:24:07.

to think ahead into how that might work, and things like protecting

:24:08.:24:11.

humans, in those types of environments. Whether or not you can

:24:12.:24:16.

get the right answers, because things are changing so fast, that is

:24:17.:24:20.

the real question. But talking about 5 million jobs being replaced by

:24:21.:24:24.

robots, this is a very real is you, and we are all going to start

:24:25.:24:30.

dealing with much more of that in the workplace. -- a very real issue.

:24:31.:24:38.

When we are talking about robots, this is manufacturing, because one

:24:39.:24:41.

expert said that robots will take jobs, but people will have whole new

:24:42.:24:46.

areas that we have not thought of at the moment. There are new jobs about

:24:47.:24:53.

working alongside robots, understanding robots, but in caring,

:24:54.:24:57.

robots potentially doing some of the lifting and menial jobs there. And

:24:58.:25:02.

yes, I think it will free people up to do different jobs, but it is

:25:03.:25:06.

changing the skills. One cinema chain is reporting record ticket

:25:07.:25:12.

sales as it seeks more takeovers, that is in the Telegraph, talking

:25:13.:25:17.

about Cineworld, but this is a broader trend in the UK. Bridget

:25:18.:25:29.

Jones, Jungle Book, very popular. This is the wider trend of

:25:30.:25:33.

experiences, not things, we have reached peak stuff, and cinema is a

:25:34.:25:41.

great thing to go out and do. Even though we have all this media, the

:25:42.:25:45.

advantages that you are not distracted. Some viewers have said

:25:46.:25:49.

they just go for the popcorn! You buy popcorn at home! That is all

:25:50.:25:55.

from us for the day, thank you for your company, see you soon.

:25:56.:26:10.

Hello, good morning. It is really going to feel cold for all

:26:11.:26:11.

Download Subtitles

SRT

ASS