9 of Swiss Life will be able to rise to 9

It is decidedly better to do her shopping in London to Frankfurt and not only to take advantage of the fall of the pound. Investors have been much happier by going to use in the rays of Tesco and Sainsbury's only choosing, German, Metro or Arcandor, ex-Karstadt, the title still dropped by half since the beginning of the year and who now weighs less than 400 million euros. Metro is still worth 8 billion but its value was divided by 2 over a year and still fell by 14 since early January. The comparison is cruel with their British counterparts such as Tesco which fell by 16 in a year or Sainsbury that has lost it that 2 over the same period. It has so far not surprising, the two "champions" German being victims of their cumbersome and their inconsistency. It is now in the midst of crisis, so in the worst period, the owner of the famous wholesale stores, whose results were disappointing, must finally to sort and reorganize its assets. This Metro there will therefore have difficulty in his catch.

Heavy weight

The crisis has divided acquisitions into two categories, those that are happy to not have made, and others, that it take. A failure to be welcomed that the purchase of the Scottish Christian Salvesen, carried out at the end of 2007, has, last year, clipped more than a third of its historical activities operating margin and quadrupled its net debt, the carrier and logistics officer Norbert Dentressangle has choice to turn a trial which did grow more of 70. Without this incursion in the perfidious Albion, drômoise company have virtually achieved, with two years in advance, its goal of profitability of operations from 5 for 2010, today compromised. Ex-Christian Salvesen, six times less profitable situation leaves certainly important levers for improvement, but the State of the logistics activities of the British, including a good half is below the average of those of the Group profitability shows the length of the road ahead. The shareholders of the family group, who saw the title down 59 on the stock market over the past year, can still be comfort in finding those of Deutsche Post DHL and Danish DFS are as much to the trailer.

Swiss army knife

What does not kill me makes me stronger. Swiss Life can now expect to apply to its disastrous Germany campaign the remark attributed to the greatest conqueror of all time. The insurer does not disclose the transfer price obtained for the sale of 8.4 of the capital of MLP, independent insurance broker whose fierce resistance held him failed last year. The experts assume however in line with the value in the accounts, already revised down about half on the basis of a depreciation of EUR 159 million in 2008. And as a Swiss knife, the "deal" offers two other advantages from the point of view of investors, in addition to this the MLP Bee-eater exit door. One, the acquirer Talanx, fort already of 2.9 of Swiss Life, will be able to rise to 9.9: what give new support to the action, without even speculate on the final goals of war of the third insurer to German willing to grow outside its borders. Two, Swiss Life will be able to return to work seriously to its commercial development in Germany, a necessity after this imbroglio of several months. In the meantime, a capitalization of EUR 2.7 billion, barely a third of the intrinsic value, reassures the public. What explained the resurgence in stock market, after the dramatic fall of 2008.