18/07/2013 World Business Report

His daughter says that his health has dramatically improved. Those are

the latest headlines. Now, the latest financial news.

Del's Battle of the billionaires. Michael Dell and Carl Icahn face a

vital shareholder vote in their fight for control of the company.

Choosing his words carefully, Ben Bernanke tries to soothe markets in

his twice yearly address to Congress. This is World Business

Report. Falling sales and shrinking cash reserves. We will assess the

options for struggling phone maker Nokia. We begin with Dell, once the

darling of the tech apology world and now struggling with rapid

decline. -- the technology world. Today could be a decisive one for

the company's future. From a record high of almost $60 per share during

the dot-com boom, shares for Dell have slumped, hitting an all-time

low of just eight dollars in November. At the moment, they are

$12. Billionaire Michael Dell, the man who founded the company three

decades ago, is offering shareholders a way out. He wants to

buy them out at $13 per share, take the company private and turn it

around. However, hedge fund tycoon Carl Icahn, one of Wall Street's

biggest names, has promised to block the buyout, saying it substantially

undervalued the company. Shareholders will vote on the matter

today and it could be very close. This is my old computer that I have

not used in a really long time. Collecting dust in storage, this

woman has been ages of Dell computers for decades until she

needed to replace old laptop. She bought a tablet instead. People

asked why I was going to get another laptop. They said I could get a

tablet and I could take it wherever. That is the problem Dell has been

facing with the growing popularity of tablet. Sales of personal

computers have been in decline and tablet sales are set to overtake

them by the end of next year. Who can save Dell? These two men have

been fighting for many months. On the left, the company founder,

Michael Dell. On the right, billionaire investor Carl Icahn.

Michael Dell wants to buy the company back as naked private for

just under $25 billion. Carl Icahn says the offer is not high enough.

Whoever wins, it is a difficult job to turn the business around. Dell as

a company derives 70% of its revenue from personal computers. Personal

computers are in a state of historic decline. These are the traditional

largely Windows software -based personal computers with keyboard and

mouse. That business has been declining and has never been that

bad in the history of the industry. Dell is trying to stay relevant. For

its founder, the battle against the billionaire investor is only the

beginning of the challenge. A very important day for Dell indeed. As I

am sure you are well aware, Dell is not the only fallen star of

technology fighting to reinvent itself. Nokia announces its

second-quarter results later but what investors will really be

looking for is news on whether there is enough money for the company to

stick with its turnaround plan. Stephen Elop said it would take two

years. It is now in its third year. His gamble in 2011 to ditch Nokia's

operating system in favour of Windows has failed to pay off. There

is little sign of it catching up with Samsung or Apple. Analysts

expect the day's results to show a fall in handsets should then. Could

this be crunch time? We are expect them... We expect 7 million handsets

will be smartphones. The rest will be handsets that are not

smartphones. That latter area has been on the improved. That has been

the part of Nokia's business that has kept it going while it fell

behind in the smartphone arena. is right. That has kept the company

these last 2.5 years. Android smartphones have become much cheaper

faster than anyone expect. This has slightly wrongfooted Nokia. It has

launched its new devices that are not smartphones, but it does call

them smartphones, and it is not clear if it can carry that. They do

not have enough features. Clearly Stephen Elop has put his eggs in

Microsoft's basket, as it were. Will this payoff? Sales are picking up

with Microsoft. They have launched a new handset with an amazing camera,

which we believe will help the whole range of smartphones. Things are

looking better for the smartphones side of the business. Sounding

optimistic. Thank you for your time.

The world's most powerful banker, now. Can you guess his name? He was

choosing his words very carefully yesterday as he gave his twice

yearly testimony to Congress. Markets both in the US and around

the world have been struck waiting with declaratory of Ben Bernanke's

message -- fluctuating in-line with the of Ben Bernanke's message. Since

the last global market sell-off, he has tried to clarify his message,

making it clear that any tapering of asset purchases, the $85 billion

spent on bonds every month, would happen only if the US economy

continued on its current path of recovery. Because our asset

purchases depend on economic and the natural development, they are by no

means on a preset course. On the one hand, if economic conditions improve

and inflation rises decisively, the pace of asset purchases could be

reduced somewhat more quickly. On the other hand, if the outlook for

employment were to become less favourable, if inflation did not

move back to ideal levels, the current pace of purchases could be

maintained for longer. Although what he said on Wednesday was not very

different from what we have previously heard, it was the

language that he used. He was very clear. That is exactly what

investors were waiting to hear. Wall Street's reaction was muted, a clear

indication that this was the clarity they were seeking.

What has the market reaction been today? Ben Bernanke has spoken. What

has happened since? So far, looking at the market numbers today in Asia,

mixed results. One reason is concerned over China's property set

and the financing available to property developments. This is

weighing on the Chinese market. However, overall, it is being

supported by the promise to keep monetary policy easy for the

foreseeable future, which is why shares in Japan, Australia, New

Zealand, Malaysia and Singapore are all in positive territory. Chinese

and Chinese related shares are mostly lower. We have benchmarks in

mainland China and Taiwan in negative territory. The slowdown in

growth in the mainland is a main concern right now and increased

pressure to reform the economy in its annual report... The IMF said it

is increasingly urgent for China to move away from its dependence on

exports and government led investments, which have fuelled

rapid and unbalanced growth. Basically, the markets today on