23/10/2012 World Business Report

Jimmy Savile. Those are the latest headlines from BBC World news. Now

for the latest financial news with Hello and a warm welcome. You're

with World Business Report. These are the headlines: Facebook in

focus, the online networking company announces results later and

investors will be looking for something to like. I'm Rico Hizon

in Singapore, Australia's largest grain merchant will decide on a

multi- million pound takeover. And have to get more women in the

boardroom. Viviane Reding presents her controversial plan for quotas

to the European Commission today. Good to have you with us. Back in

May, wearing his trademark jumper, Facebook's chief-executive Mark

Zuckerberg listed his social media company on the stock market. Since

then shares in Facebook have dropped 50 %. So today when it

announces its third-quarter results investors will be hoping they have

made some progress in boosting revenue. Not even six months ago

Mark Zuckerberg, sporting his Signature hoodie, took his social

networking site public. Facebook's popularity continues to grow. It

now has over 1 billion active users. But how successfully it has been

able to capitalise on all of those eyes is what investors want to hear.

People will be looking closely at their mobile revenues, whether they

are increasing, because that is seen as beaky existential issue for

the company right now. -- the key. His mobile revenues exceed the

forecasts that will help produce a big jump in the share price.

Increasingly people are checking face that on their mobiles, it is

the fastest growing part of the company -- Facebook on. Advertising

is very important. Tuesday's earnings report is a concern for

Wall Street, but also worrying is what happens on Thursday when

trading restrictions on stocks owned by a Facebook employees are

lifted, meaning they are free to sell. It's a flood of Facebook

shares hit the market all at once that could put more pressure on the

company. Liu, founder of the social internet fund, believes when it

comes to making money off social networking Facebook is just

scratching the surface. We are in the early days of social commerce.

Facebook will allow people to buy their friends in their social

network gifts over the Facebook network. That has a lot of

potential. It is those ideas that investors want to hear from Mark

Zuckerberg. Signs the young CEO has a plan for Facebook's future. It is

a multi-billion dollar deal in farming, with Australia's largest

seller of grain at the centre. This company's crinkled and it is

reviewing a takeover offer from the US agricultural giant Archer

Daniels Midland. To explain why this is significant, let's go to

Rico Hizon in Singapore. We know food prices are going up and

farming is a pretty hot industry at the moment. Tell us about the deal.

When you talk to analysts are they say that it is an offer that they

may have difficulty refusing. Others say that Archer Daniels

Midland may have to sweep in their offer because of the recent appeal

of agricultural companies due to rising demand for food from key

emerging markets, such as India and China. They also stress that the

extreme spike in the share price also signals that investors believe

the business is worth more than is It is only an indicative price at

this stage. ADM are the biggest process of corn and they may have

the inside track because it already owns 14.9 % of Graincorp. This year

loan agricultural companies have been in major demand, they have

been takeover targets, you have Graincorp making a 6.2 billion

offer for a Canadian company and a trading house from Japan making a

$3.6 billion bid for an American company. According to the US

Department of Agriculture, and international grains, global trade

in wheat, barley and Queneau there is expected to double by 2050 and

Australia is also an exporter of many key commodities and it is the

world's second largest exporter of wheat. This deal will be discussed

by Graincorp's board of directors and shareholders, it looks like

they could be a bidding war for Graincorp's shares, apart from what

is already offered by Archer Midland Daniels. Perhaps the shares

could go even higher as a result of this bidding war. They were up 40 %

in Graincorp on Monday? That's right. They were up 40 % and many

traders and analysts expect a bidding war, the price could go

higher. Asian grain companies may make a bid for the remaining shares

that ADM does not already own. right, thank you for joining us. We

will keep an eye on that. The European Union wants to see more

women on the board of major companies across the union, but

gaining support for the motion is proving difficult. Viviane Reding,

the European Commissioner for justice, will present her

controversial plan for mandatory quotas for women on non-executive

boards of listed companies today. But some member states are opposed

to the move. The boardroom is still a bastion of male dominance with a

staggering 86 % of male board members across Europe's biggest

companies. But the EU is proposing that by 2020 companies are forced

to ensure that at least 40 % of their board members are women. The

idea of forcing companies to increase the number of women who

sit on their board by a quota system has received stiff

opposition. A very large number of national governments are all

calling for a rethink of the proposal. With this level of

opposition the plan could certainly be blocked, there is hope the

European Parliament would be able to persuade member states to change

their attitude. In a letter sent to Viviane Reding, the EU's justice

commissioner, member countries stated that although they agreed

there needed to be a better keyboard measures to improve the

situation should be taken by member states rather than the EU. Its

founder and macro cheek, Helena Morrissey, is against the quota

proposal. -- and CEO. Saying having different types of people with

different experience means we will end up with more effective force.

- effective boards. I am very anti- quotas where they are mandating an

arguably discriminating against another section of the population.

It is important to collaborate. I have learned from the 30% Club, you

need to pull people from other areas together, to achieve more

than individual actions. Although it is good news to have the

spotlight on this issue, it is unfortunate if we end up fighting

amongst ourselves when in the end we won the same result, a better

gender balance and more effective boardrooms -- we want. The move has

been welcomed by other nations to have already begun to redress the

balance. France, which is bringing in its own laws which will force 20

% on its boards by 2014, and 40 % by 2017, has written to the

commission to say it is in favour of EU legislation. Belgium and

Austria have also given their support. Now this time yesterday I

was telling you to keep an eye on Yahoo because they were going to

release their results after the closing bell. Shares rose by more

than 4% and after hours trading showed a 2% rise in revenues in the

third quarter in the US. Under the leadership of Marisa Myer, its new

CEO, they were just over a billion dollars more profitable than the

same time last year. She pledged to pour more resources into developing

services for smart phones and tablet computers and improve their

search engine and e-mail service. The ratings agency Moody's has

downgraded the credit ratings of five Spanish regions by one or two

notches each. They were all described by the ratings agency to

have poor liquidity and large maturing debt obligations, and they