BUSINESS-01
Clinton, Trump Seen as Likely Nominees; CNN Poll: Republicans Want Cruz to
Drop Out; Leicester Secured First English Premier League Title - Part 1>
Don Riddell; Paul La Monica>
over. Eight out of ten registered voters believe Trump is the Republican
nominee and about the same proportions say Hillary Clinton will be the
Democratic nominee. The battle over England`s Premier League championship
started out with the Spurs 2-1 ahead. The last two minutes Chelsea had a
comeback with two goals making Leicester City the Premier League
champions.>
Finance>
[16:00:00]
RICHARD QUEST, HOST: Good, strong start to the week. May has arrived. And the market has shrugged off those April showers. The Dow is up 114 points on the first trading day of the month.
Elliemae oh here we go. Oh. I thought that was going to be far more robust than that. That was a wimpy gavel on Monday, the 2nd of May.
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QUEST: Tonight, an online currency conundrum. This man says he is the creator of Bitcoin. We`ll put it to the test. History has arrived in Havana. The first U.S. cruise ship for decades has docked in the port. And literally a game of two halves. While Spurs may be winning in the premier league, Leicester can still become English champions this hour. We will have the details. We`ll let you know how it`s progressing.
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QUEST: I`m Richard Quest. We`re starting a new week together, and I mean business.
Good evening. You can call it a footballer`s dream that`s been deferred 132 years and it could be realized in the next 45 minutes -- If last year`s champions about to mount a second-half comeback.
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QUEST: Leicester City, the unlikely leaders of the English premier league given 5,000 to 1 odds to win their first-ever title at the start of the season. Now, it all depends not on Leicester`s performance. But another match taking place at Stamford Bridge where it`s halftime in London. Tottenham Hotspurs are up 2-0 against Chelsea.
So this is where it goes. If Spurs can`t manage to hold their lead, if Spurs draw or lose, then Leicester becomes crowned champions of the premier league. And a fairytale season will be inscribed in history.
If, however, Spurs hold on to that 2-0 lead which they have got at halftime, then we all move on further into the week.
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QUEST: Kellie Morgan`s outside Stamford Bridge where Tottenham are playing Chelsea. It`s one of those rum deals, isn`t it? Leicester`s future depends on somebody else`s performance.
KELLIE MORGAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes. Absolutely, Richard. You have a situation here where you are the star of the show and you are being forced to sit on the sidelines and watch effectively what could be the final scene play out in your fairytale. Now that is what is happening here.
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MORGAN: And if that wasn`t drama enough for you, what`s happening behind me is just at a drama. No one was really expecting that Spurs were going do get two goals in the first half.
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MORGAN: 35 minutes in, then 9 minutes later, they score two goals. So it is going to plan for Spurs, they came out here tonight determined to beat Chelsea. It is their title also that is up for grabs here. They haven`t won a title since 1962. This is as every bit as important to Spur as it is to Leicester City right now.
So they`re out there and they will try to hang on to the lead you can be absolutely sure. But as you said they need to win every one of those last three games. All that Leicester City has to do is draw or win one of those games and the title is theirs. It`s a fairytale. We`ve got another half to play.
QUEST: Hang on, hang on.
MORGAN: We`ve got another half to play.
QUEST: You`re getting ahead of yourself. We`ve got another half to play. We have still got to know, of course, how much extra time or injury time. The second half has just begun. But here`s the point. I mean, whether it`s Spurs or whether it`s Leicester, as you say, there`s a fairytale element to it because Spurs themselves haven`t had this for the best part of four decades.
MORGAN: No. Absolutely not. And what we have to understand here is that the rivalry that exists between Chelsea and Spurs, there is no love lost between these two teams. Chelsea would love nothing more than to deny Spurs their shot at the title. So it`s going to be some passionate playing out there. Spurs have everything to lose. They`re in it to win it. They have to win it if they keep their title dreams alive, Richard.
QUEST: Kellie, stand by, get ready to do duty because obviously, once that first -- that second half has come to an end and we`re into injury time, we`re going to need you to be interpreting for us how long it is to go, what the mood is and all of those sort of things. Thank you, Kellie Morgan who is at Stamford Bridge.
And we`ve also got a whole host in a pub. We`re looking at Leicester fans. We`ll have Don Ridell and if everything goes according to plan, we believe the final whistle will be blown some point during the next hour while we`re still on air and we will bring you the results and the implications obviously for what that result is going to be.
[16:05:04]
QUEST: And as we continue, a mystery for six years that now may be unraveled. This is the Bitcoin. And the question of who created this electronic virtual currency has just bedeviled the world. Investigators and reporters have tried time and again to determine the true identity of the man known as Satoshi Nakamoto.
Now an Australian computer scientist named Craig Wright claims he`s the currency creator. Well he looks sort of fairly straight forward type of chap.
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QUEST: He published a blog post that contains what he says is definitive proof. I read the blog post and didn`t understand a word of it. Some Bitcoin developers remain skeptical.
Now, Bitcoin flourished even as the identity of the inventor remained unknown. Plagued by controversy, volatility, it gets up to roughly just over $1,100 and change in 1151 back in 2013 as you can see. But by 2014, the Bitcoin exchange Mt. Gox is shut down. Mt. Gox is one of the largest exchanges and you see the crash in Bitcoin that follows.
Add into it a whole host of allegations about drug laundering money, illegal use of it, all sorts of nefarious activities for which Bitcoins were being used and you start to see how it continues there. But now Bitcoin is down at around 300, 400.
Mark Andrison defended the volatility saying Bitcoin had the power to reshape the financial system. In 2015, Bitcoin exchanges saw surges in business particularly from Greece funnily enough where it was seen as being a great store of value.
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Bruce Fenton is with me. Good to see you, sir.
BRUCE FENTON, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, BITCOIN FOUNDATION: Good to see you.
QUEST: Please, remain comfortable. Now, you`re the Executive Director of the Bitcoin Foundation which is an advocacy group for the currency. First and foremost, do you believe that man I showed Craig -- whatever his name is -- is the man?
FENTON: I don`t think there`s enough information to say yet.
QUEST: Hang on. You`ve read the blog?
FENTON: Yes.
QUEST: And he`s given his cryptography address -- signature and he`s given all the ways in which he did it.
FENTON: Yes.
QUEST: So why do you doubt?
FENTON: Well there`s - the signature that he gave is not conclusive proof and there`s a lot of bright cryptographer`s a lot smarter than me who have looked at that and they don`t believe it. Some believe it, most I would say don`t right now.
The other compelling piece of evidence was a couple other experts have met him and talked to him. One is Gavin Andresen who was - is of the early and prominent developers in Bitcoin.
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FENTON: Met him and he is convinced. So that speaks volumes to me but still not enough to convince me personally.
QUEST: Is there a way conclusively to prove it?
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FENTON: Probably not ever a way to conclusively prove it because of the nature of Bitcoin because someone could always be hacked but there are other transactions he could do that would definitely give me and probably almost everybody in the industry a pretty high degree of confidence.
QUEST: Right. I mean I do not understand it. I`m not going to sit here and feign intelligence on this when I have got no knowledge of how Bitcoin works other than the fact it does work. But I was reading that -- Satoshi Nakamoto there are ways in which he could send something out with the signature of Satoshi on it that would lead people to say, yep, you`re the man.
FENTON: Yes. There`s -- the same basically an early block that a Bitcoin that are pretty much known owned by Satoshi.
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FENTON: If he sent something publicly in the future, or said he is going to do it tomorrow or something like that, that would be helpful.
QUEST: Why would he not? Why would he not do something conclusive?
FENTON: Oh, you`d have to ask him. I mean, it`s -- there could be - you know there could be reasons. There`s rumors that it`s in a trust. There`s Tax implications like that, it could be a hoax, it could be real.
QUEST: What`s the significance other than prurient interest of this man who may have created something that we really, you know, that - to some extent has got everybody befuddled and scratching their heads. What`s the significance of knowing who it is? Because you were telling me earlier that actually it doesn`t matter if he is the real man.
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FENTON: Yes that`s the great news about Bitcoin is - Bitcoin is basically the world`s best ledger. It`s a statement of truth that says who owns what and at the end of the day that`s all that matters. It doesn`t matter who created it, it doesn`t matter if they`re a good or a bad person or what their motives were because that statement of truth is a statement of truth and that`s not going to change, and that`s the real powerful thing about Bitcoin, is this very, very solid ledger, probably the best ledger the world has ever seen.
QUEST: Bruce, do you believe that the Bitcoin reputation has improved? Ever since Mt Gox and then we had Silk Road and just about every form of terrorism, drug lord -- drug dealing, prostitution, you name the nefarious activity and somebody suggest it`s being funded by a Bitcoin.
FENTON: Sure.
QUEST: Do you believe its reputation is improving at all?
[16:10:02]
FENTON: Yes. I mean, and that`s definitely true. All of those things are funded by Bitcoin. It wouldn`t be much of a currency if it wasn`t used for those things. Just as the U.S. dollar is used way, way, way more than Bitcoin to fund those things.
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QUEST: Oh come on. No, no, no, hang on a second. I think I have got to jump in here. The U.S) dollar may be used by that but there are restrictions on dollar trading which as you move dollars through the system would eventually show how much is being used.
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FENTON: Right -
QUEST: -- Money laundering.
FENTON: But in terms of percentage, there`s way more that`s being used in U.S. Dollar. There was one branch of HSBC that had a comparable amount to all the Bitcoin traded in a year.
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FENTON: You know, that they are trading with cartels and things. So any good currency is going to be used for things that some people may consider to be bad or may be actually bad.
QUEST: Good to see you sir.
FENTON: Great. Thank you.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
QUEST: Thank you very much in deed. Now, turning to the markets, the Dow, look at this.
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QUEST: We have a good, strong rally on the Dow. Triple digit gains. Opened straight up and stays there throughout the session. It was helped by a fall in the dollar. Gold which is also above $1,300 an ounce incidentally I`ve written about gold and what a useless investment I think it is in today`s "Quest Means Business" newsletter, we`ll show you the address for that if a moment. But gold is now at the highest level since January 2015 at 1,300. The Dow Jones itself up 117, 17,891, a gain of some half a percent.
An 18-month courtship has fallen apart. It was a $34.6 billion deal. It was between Halliburton and Baker Hughes. It was designed to help both companies survive cheap oil. Now, the deal happens at a time oil prices are starting to fall. And together they would have controlled 90% of the U.S. oil services market according to the Justice Department.
So the Justice Department sued to stop the deal one month ago on the grounds of anti-trust activity claiming that it would have given Baker Hughes and Halliburton too much of a dominant position in the market. In addition, it was also facing scrutiny from Europe from the European Commission. As a result, the deal falls apart even though the companies initially fought back.
Not surprisingly, there is just look at that. That seems a large amount of money. $3.5 billion. That is a huge amount of money as a break-up fee. We haven`t got the letters wrong. It`s not million. It`s a $3.5 billion break- up fee which will give Baker Hughes a much-needed cash cushion.
It`s the latest deal to fall victim to the regulators. You`ll be well aware of the different ones. So these are the ones, Baker Hughes has gone. Comcast and Time Warner Cable went. Allergan and Pfizer went, that went on the basis of inversions. And Staples and Office Depot is waiting for a justice decision after the FTC stopped -- sued to stop the deal.
Different reasons why they`ve all gone but still, nonetheless, they have all bitten the dust.
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Bob Nardelli served as Chrysler CEO, mergers are necessary he said and the government`s crackdown is hurting.
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BOB NARDELLI, FORMER CEO, CHRYSLER: The level of uncertainty in the C-Suite has never been as high as it is today. The level of complexity that we have to deal with, geo-political, you look at taxes, you look at what`s happening in the M&A market. The administration has shut down $400 billion of potential deals. Today corporations must do M&A to get the top-line growth. They`re getting earnings, they`re driving productivity but to get growth they`re looking for synergies of productivity, Richard.
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QUEST: That top line growth that Bob Nardelli spoke of and yet we have these deals falling apart. Paul La Monica is with me. Good to see you as always.
PAUL LA MONICA, CNN MONEY CORRESPONDENT: Good to see you. Thank you.
QUEST: Looking at those various deals and how they`ve fallen apart, there`s no common theme as such. Some are anti-trust, some are regulatory. Some just you know collapse on inversions and those things. But what do you see as a common theme?
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LA MONICA: I think that the administration clearly is concerned about two companies just having too much of a stake in a particular market. Obviously, as you point out, not all those deals shot down for the same reasons and then some other deals have come through and Time Warner Cable, for example, not going to be sold to NBC Universal, you have Time Warner Cable actually is going to merge with Charter, a smaller cable company and that deal is going through.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
QUEST: So this idea that Nardelli talks about, that somehow the government or at least the Obama administration, the DOJ, this administration is anti- merger, do you buy that?
LA MONICA: I think that may be a little harsh because it`s something that governments around the world I think are taking a closer look at mergers. Because this deal, you know, Halliburton and Baker Hughes, even if the Obama administration gave it a green light, it was going to face a very tough review abroad as well.
[16:15:10]
QUEST: But you see the thing about these deals is, I mean to my way of looking at it, particularly the Halliburton deal, the Comcast deal, those that have failed, not on the inversion grounds, but on anti-trust, that is standard settled law. There`s nothing original about you`re a dominant position and it`s bad for you to have that much market power.
LA MONICA: It`s pretty cut and dry. I don`t know there`s a political agenda here, it`s pretty easy to determine what a company`s market share is and add it to the company`s market share they`re acquiring. Obviously what` is now convoluted in this world we live in is what exactly is the market, what`s the definable market? Some people will have some issue there. But even with the oil services business it`s not really that difficult to figure out what the market share for those two companies would have been.
QUEST: The Dow goes up 100 points today. For no particular --
LA MONICA: It was a quiet day despite the rally. We didn`t have a lot of news.
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LA MONICA: Apple stock actually though did not participate. That`s a company now that`s been down eight days in a row so I think a lot of unhappy investors in that particular stock.
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QUEST: Somebody, I guarantee you, guarantee you claim buying opportunity in the next week. Good to see you, Paul.
LA MONICA: Thank you.
QUEST: Our newsletter, which of course Paul is also heavily involved in, the "Quest Means Business" newsletter, it has my views on the profitable moment and my views today all about gold, and the rest of the CNN money team. You can sign for out it, cnnmoney.com/quest to subscribe. And my view on gold can be summed up in two words; useless investment. And upon those words, the rest of you will all chime in.
Now, you`re going to go Cuba and you`re going to go on a cruise and now you can go on a U.S. Cruise ship.
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QUEST: Yes, there it is arriving in Havana. The first U.S. cruise ship for decades finally makes its appearance.
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QUEST: The Carnival Ship, Adonia, became the first U.S. cruise ship to visit Cuba in nearly 40 years on Monday. From Miami to Havana, it`s about 360 kilometers. Look at the way the map shows exactly how it goes. It`s just about 90-odd miles at the closest point on the Florida straits. That`s about 360 kilometers. But it`s a gap that hasn`t been bridged in decades.
So the Adonia set out from Florida on Sunday. It had 700 passengers on board. It docked in Havana a few hours ago. Now the route it`s going to take, it`s going to go down to (inaudible), then it will go down to Santiago de Cuba, and anybody who`s been to Cuba will know that this is a very large island with huge potential and masses amount of unspoiled areas.
[16:20:13]
Carnival`s chief executive said this trip is more than just an ordinary every day run of the mill cruise.
ARNOLD DONALD, CEO CARNIVAL CORPORATION: To be a part of truly making history and preparing for an even more positive future for everyone is one of the greatest honors any company can have. So to be a part of being the first people to be able to sail from the U.S. to Cuba and back, including those who were born in Cuba, is a tremendous privilege and honor.
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QUEST: Patrick Oppmann joins me live from Havana. I mean it is a - it is a historic moment and whilst we can enjoy the Adonia`s arrival, it will be followed by many before long.
PATRICK OPPMANN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Richard, you know there was fierce competition to be the first U.S. cruise line to pull off the feat that Carnival did today, to have the images of their cruise ship coming in to Havana this morning.
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OPPMAN: It was a picture perfect day and it was not smooth sailing all the way for Carnival over these last few months as they`ve been negotiating with the U.S. and the Cuban government. They had to endure a public relations disaster when it came out that Cuban born Americans, anyone who was born in Cuba was not - at least initially allowed to book passage. Carnival had to petition the Cuban government to get rid of this decades- old ridiculous restriction that prohibited Cubans from entering their own country on a cruise ship.
Of course that goes back to the very old boat lift crisis when the Castro government said that Cubans could not leave or enter the country on a boat. That was overturned and so today when the ship arrived in port, it did have Cuban-Americans on board. We saw Cubans here greeting both Americans and Cuban-Americans with hugs, with cheering, a lot of excitement Richard today, for the ship`s arrival.
QUEST: How many more U.S. ships are you expecting, Patrick?
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QUEST: I mean, I just saw there you know MSC is already there, there are other cruise lines from Europe, from Latin America, that are already going into Havana. So how fast is this gold rush of Royal Caribbean, Carnival and the others going to be?
OPPMANN: Not fast enough, Richard, because where I am standing the two slips behind me, that is the maximum capacity for the city of Havana. And I know you have been on Carnival`s largest ship "The Breezes" that holds 3,000 more people than the Adonia, why is that ship not here, because it can`t fit in the harbor.
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OPPMANN: That is a real problem is the infrastructure - Cuba`s aging, ancient, outdated infrastructure that needs to be modernized, that effort is going far, far too slow. But of course today is an important first step in that journey but it`s going to be a very long journey, Richard.
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QUEST: Patrick Oppmann, in the beauty and delight of Havana. Although I always think it`s odd that we always see you with the smelting works and the oil refinery behind you there with the -- as opposed to - if the camera just turns a bit to the left, the most beautiful side of the harbor. But I see the ship and that`s the important --
OPPMANN: Next time, next time.
QUEST: The ship is the important thing. Thank you. Patrick Oppmann who`s in Havana for us. Tomorrow night`s program I`ll be joined live with the Carnival Chief Executive, Arnold Donald, who will be talking about his company`s future in Cuba. Arnold Donald on "Quest Means Business" 9:00 o`clock London, well usual time because we`re talking together so this time tomorrow. You`ll be talking about it.
If you cross the Caribbean Sea, then you come to a very different economic situation. Perhaps not that different from Cuba at its worst points but certainly a deteriorating situation in Venezuela, which is struggling for the very basics to keep the lights on. The country`s taken one its most democratic measures yet to fight a severe energy crisis.
This time last week, it would be nearing 4:00 o`clock in the afternoon in Caracas. Now the time is around 4:20 because the President ordered the clocks to go forward 30 minutes. Why? To extend daylight at peak consumption time.
Moving the clocks just shows the desperate measures, for instance, a two- day work week for government workers. Rolling blackouts, all designed to save energy. The government says a drought is to blame for the energy crisis. The critics say the government with corruption and failure to diversify has been the main reason.
CNN`s Paula Newton is in Caracas for us tonight.
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PAULA NEWTON, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Even in the driving rain, Venezuelans started their day in search of food expecting to see the usual grim queues that form at government stores.
[16:25:06]
NEWTON: Not today. The only stores with affordable food are shut. Closed for the National Workers` Holiday the sign explains. It says sorry and thank you. People walked away empty handed but full of dread wondering where the next meal might come from. I asked Julian Perez what he needs.
JULIAN PEREZ, CARACAS RESIDENT: As translated: All the basics. I have nothing at home. Sometimes I go hungry. Who can say that we the people aren`t hungry right now?
NEWTON: And here`s the thing. These people aren`t allowed to come back tomorrow. Food is rationed here. Doled out according to the last number on your government I.D.
(Carlos Chidinos) explains his turn is today. His number is 5. Cinco? Cinco. So he`s saying that just today and Wednesday can he buy things and because it`s closed today, he`s out of luck.
So, too, (inaudible) with two children and one on the way, she is raising her kids with no food in her cupboards and barely any in the fridge. Venezuela is sitting on the world`s largest proven oil reserves but it can`t stop the nation`s refrigerators. This is all I have, she tells me, as I ask about milk. When I find it, she says, they have milk. And even at 6 months pregnant, sometimes with a child on each hand, she lines up for as many as 18 hours to find anything to eat.
(Janet Debolivar) shows us all she has, too. She says it took her three weeks of queuing to stock this much, a shop that would have normally taken an hour. This is not the worst of it for this family. Janet introduces us to her daughter (Yasday) who explains the country is out of medicine, too. And there`s no line you can wait in for that.
(YASDAY BOLVAR, CARACAS RESIDENT): As translated: Cancer waits for no one. I`m worried about my own health and health of so many others going through this right now.
NEWTON: Yasday is holding unfilled prescriptions for chemo. And she says no doctor, no hospital can tell her when she`ll get treatment.
BOLVAR: (As translated) It pains me to see Venezuela in the state it`s in right now. But what really makes my heart ache is the thought of not being here for my daughter tomorrow.
NEWTON: Three generations the Bolvar`s are counting on things to change in Venezuela. But like so many on this day, they cling to patience, hope and very little else.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
QUEST: Powerful reporting from Paula Newton. Paula, we were hoping to talk to you live in vision but I think from where you are -- you may have -- your live shot position may have just been subjected to a blackout.
NEWTON: Yes. Welcome to Venezuela. And in fact, Richard, this is how bad it is in this country. We`re in Caracas, this isn`t really supposed to suffering from rolling blackouts but it does happen here.
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NEWTON: It is not scheduled and this is what people are dealing with at the moment. And as you saw in my report there, Richard, we wish we could say the situation with medicine is isolated cases. The fact of the matter it is not. This country is rapidly running out of not just essential medicines but also basic food. They import of what they consume here and because they`re almost out of hard currency only 12 billion left apparently and all of that involves reserves, this country is -- and the people are really suffering. Richard?
QUEST: Paula, we`ll be talking to you over the next few days and as we`d do that I`d like you to bear - to answer over the next couple of days think about really how this plays out in the next few months if not few years.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
QUEST: Paula Newton on the line there in the middle of a blackout in Caracas bringing us that strong report on the current situation.
The political jabs continue to fly between the U.S. presidential candidates. It`s all ahead of the primary battle in Indiana. That takes place tomorrow.
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QUEST: A new CNN poll suggests the American people have already made up their minds who`s going to be the nominees. Not surprisingly, Trump and Clinton, they are. We`ll talk about it after the break. "Quest Means Business." good evening.
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[16:30:00] (COMMERCIAL BREAK)
RICHARD QUEST, CNN ANCHOR: I`m Richard Quest. There`s more QUEST MEANS BUSINESS in just a moment. When chief executive of Starbucks said he had aggressive plans in Africa. Republican voters say time for Ted Cruz to get out of the race for the White House. A new CNN poll numbers have been released. We`ll have them for you after the news headlines because before any of that, this iMs CNN and on this network the news always comes first.
