Outdoor advertising specialist JCDecaux said on Wednesday it was still hopeful about its sales prospects for next year, despite continued issues in Russia, its second-largest billboard market. "I am cautiously optimistic about next year, but this is a short-term point of view. I'm not expecting 2015 to be a cracking year," Jean-Francois Decaux, co-chief executive of the French company told the Morgan Stanley Technology, Media, and Telecoms Conference in Barcelona."France still has issues. Spain is in recovery. Russia remains difficult because the economy is affected by European sanctions. The media market in Russia will be down next year for sure," he said.The family-controlled group, which competes with smaller rivals U.S.-based CBS Outdoor and Germany's Stroeer Media, earlier this month predicted that sales growth excluding acquisitions would be in the "low single digits" in the fourth quarter, leading to full-year underlying growth of "slightly above" 3 percent.Asked on Wednesday whether JCDecaux was interested in acquisitions to increase its size in the United States, Decaux said the family had been considering such a move for many years.
Morgan Stanley is a global financial services company that, through its subsidiaries and affiliates, provides its products and services to a range of clients and customers, including corporations, governments, financial institutions and individuals. Shares of MS traded higher by 0.03% or $0.01/share to $35.48. In the past year, the shares have traded as low as $28.31 and as high as $36.44. On average, 9958410 shares of MS exchange hands on a given day and today's volume is recorded at 2905811.
Source
