:00:04. > :00:14.Jimmy Savile. Those are the latest headlines from BBC World news. Now
:00:14. > :00:17.
:00:17. > :00:22.for the latest financial news with Hello and a warm welcome. You're
:00:22. > :00:25.with World Business Report. These are the headlines: Facebook in
:00:25. > :00:31.focus, the online networking company announces results later and
:00:31. > :00:40.investors will be looking for something to like. I'm Rico Hizon
:00:40. > :00:46.in Singapore, Australia's largest grain merchant will decide on a
:00:46. > :00:49.multi- million pound takeover. And have to get more women in the
:00:49. > :00:59.boardroom. Viviane Reding presents her controversial plan for quotas
:00:59. > :01:01.
:01:01. > :01:05.to the European Commission today. Good to have you with us. Back in
:01:05. > :01:09.May, wearing his trademark jumper, Facebook's chief-executive Mark
:01:09. > :01:14.Zuckerberg listed his social media company on the stock market. Since
:01:14. > :01:18.then shares in Facebook have dropped 50 %. So today when it
:01:18. > :01:25.announces its third-quarter results investors will be hoping they have
:01:25. > :01:30.made some progress in boosting revenue. Not even six months ago
:01:30. > :01:34.Mark Zuckerberg, sporting his Signature hoodie, took his social
:01:34. > :01:39.networking site public. Facebook's popularity continues to grow. It
:01:39. > :01:45.now has over 1 billion active users. But how successfully it has been
:01:45. > :01:48.able to capitalise on all of those eyes is what investors want to hear.
:01:48. > :01:53.People will be looking closely at their mobile revenues, whether they
:01:53. > :01:59.are increasing, because that is seen as beaky existential issue for
:01:59. > :02:04.the company right now. -- the key. His mobile revenues exceed the
:02:04. > :02:08.forecasts that will help produce a big jump in the share price.
:02:08. > :02:15.Increasingly people are checking face that on their mobiles, it is
:02:15. > :02:25.the fastest growing part of the company -- Facebook on. Advertising
:02:25. > :02:28.is very important. Tuesday's earnings report is a concern for
:02:29. > :02:33.Wall Street, but also worrying is what happens on Thursday when
:02:33. > :02:36.trading restrictions on stocks owned by a Facebook employees are
:02:36. > :02:41.lifted, meaning they are free to sell. It's a flood of Facebook
:02:41. > :02:44.shares hit the market all at once that could put more pressure on the
:02:45. > :02:50.company. Liu, founder of the social internet fund, believes when it
:02:50. > :02:56.comes to making money off social networking Facebook is just
:02:56. > :03:01.scratching the surface. We are in the early days of social commerce.
:03:01. > :03:04.Facebook will allow people to buy their friends in their social
:03:05. > :03:09.network gifts over the Facebook network. That has a lot of
:03:09. > :03:18.potential. It is those ideas that investors want to hear from Mark
:03:18. > :03:22.Zuckerberg. Signs the young CEO has a plan for Facebook's future. It is
:03:22. > :03:27.a multi-billion dollar deal in farming, with Australia's largest
:03:27. > :03:31.seller of grain at the centre. This company's crinkled and it is
:03:31. > :03:36.reviewing a takeover offer from the US agricultural giant Archer
:03:36. > :03:41.Daniels Midland. To explain why this is significant, let's go to
:03:41. > :03:48.Rico Hizon in Singapore. We know food prices are going up and
:03:48. > :03:52.farming is a pretty hot industry at the moment. Tell us about the deal.
:03:52. > :03:57.When you talk to analysts are they say that it is an offer that they
:03:57. > :04:02.may have difficulty refusing. Others say that Archer Daniels
:04:02. > :04:06.Midland may have to sweep in their offer because of the recent appeal
:04:06. > :04:12.of agricultural companies due to rising demand for food from key
:04:12. > :04:16.emerging markets, such as India and China. They also stress that the
:04:16. > :04:26.extreme spike in the share price also signals that investors believe
:04:26. > :04:27.
:04:27. > :04:32.the business is worth more than is It is only an indicative price at
:04:32. > :04:37.this stage. ADM are the biggest process of corn and they may have
:04:37. > :04:41.the inside track because it already owns 14.9 % of Graincorp. This year
:04:42. > :04:45.loan agricultural companies have been in major demand, they have
:04:45. > :04:51.been takeover targets, you have Graincorp making a 6.2 billion
:04:51. > :04:56.offer for a Canadian company and a trading house from Japan making a
:04:57. > :05:01.$3.6 billion bid for an American company. According to the US
:05:01. > :05:05.Department of Agriculture, and international grains, global trade
:05:06. > :05:10.in wheat, barley and Queneau there is expected to double by 2050 and
:05:10. > :05:14.Australia is also an exporter of many key commodities and it is the
:05:14. > :05:17.world's second largest exporter of wheat. This deal will be discussed
:05:17. > :05:23.by Graincorp's board of directors and shareholders, it looks like
:05:23. > :05:28.they could be a bidding war for Graincorp's shares, apart from what
:05:28. > :05:34.is already offered by Archer Midland Daniels. Perhaps the shares
:05:34. > :05:38.could go even higher as a result of this bidding war. They were up 40 %
:05:39. > :05:42.in Graincorp on Monday? That's right. They were up 40 % and many
:05:42. > :05:52.traders and analysts expect a bidding war, the price could go
:05:52. > :05:52.
:05:52. > :05:56.higher. Asian grain companies may make a bid for the remaining shares
:05:56. > :06:03.that ADM does not already own. right, thank you for joining us. We
:06:03. > :06:06.will keep an eye on that. The European Union wants to see more
:06:06. > :06:10.women on the board of major companies across the union, but
:06:10. > :06:13.gaining support for the motion is proving difficult. Viviane Reding,
:06:13. > :06:17.the European Commissioner for justice, will present her
:06:17. > :06:22.controversial plan for mandatory quotas for women on non-executive
:06:22. > :06:28.boards of listed companies today. But some member states are opposed
:06:28. > :06:32.to the move. The boardroom is still a bastion of male dominance with a
:06:32. > :06:37.staggering 86 % of male board members across Europe's biggest
:06:37. > :06:41.companies. But the EU is proposing that by 2020 companies are forced
:06:42. > :06:45.to ensure that at least 40 % of their board members are women. The
:06:45. > :06:48.idea of forcing companies to increase the number of women who
:06:48. > :06:53.sit on their board by a quota system has received stiff
:06:53. > :06:56.opposition. A very large number of national governments are all
:06:56. > :07:00.calling for a rethink of the proposal. With this level of
:07:00. > :07:03.opposition the plan could certainly be blocked, there is hope the
:07:03. > :07:09.European Parliament would be able to persuade member states to change
:07:09. > :07:12.their attitude. In a letter sent to Viviane Reding, the EU's justice
:07:13. > :07:20.commissioner, member countries stated that although they agreed
:07:20. > :07:30.there needed to be a better keyboard measures to improve the
:07:30. > :07:31.
:07:32. > :07:35.situation should be taken by member states rather than the EU. Its
:07:35. > :07:40.founder and macro cheek, Helena Morrissey, is against the quota
:07:40. > :07:47.proposal. -- and CEO. Saying having different types of people with
:07:47. > :07:56.different experience means we will end up with more effective force.
:07:56. > :08:00.- effective boards. I am very anti- quotas where they are mandating an
:08:00. > :08:05.arguably discriminating against another section of the population.
:08:05. > :08:09.It is important to collaborate. I have learned from the 30% Club, you
:08:09. > :08:13.need to pull people from other areas together, to achieve more
:08:13. > :08:17.than individual actions. Although it is good news to have the
:08:17. > :08:21.spotlight on this issue, it is unfortunate if we end up fighting
:08:21. > :08:26.amongst ourselves when in the end we won the same result, a better
:08:26. > :08:30.gender balance and more effective boardrooms -- we want. The move has
:08:30. > :08:34.been welcomed by other nations to have already begun to redress the
:08:34. > :08:41.balance. France, which is bringing in its own laws which will force 20
:08:41. > :08:45.% on its boards by 2014, and 40 % by 2017, has written to the
:08:45. > :08:51.commission to say it is in favour of EU legislation. Belgium and
:08:51. > :08:55.Austria have also given their support. Now this time yesterday I
:08:55. > :08:59.was telling you to keep an eye on Yahoo because they were going to
:08:59. > :09:05.release their results after the closing bell. Shares rose by more
:09:05. > :09:10.than 4% and after hours trading showed a 2% rise in revenues in the
:09:10. > :09:15.third quarter in the US. Under the leadership of Marisa Myer, its new
:09:15. > :09:20.CEO, they were just over a billion dollars more profitable than the
:09:20. > :09:24.same time last year. She pledged to pour more resources into developing
:09:24. > :09:29.services for smart phones and tablet computers and improve their
:09:29. > :09:33.search engine and e-mail service. The ratings agency Moody's has
:09:33. > :09:43.downgraded the credit ratings of five Spanish regions by one or two
:09:43. > :09:43.
:09:43. > :09:48.notches each. They were all described by the ratings agency to
:09:48. > :09:52.have poor liquidity and large maturing debt obligations, and they