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Quest Means Business

Facebook Goes Public; Angela Merkel Denies Report She Encouraged Greek PM to Put Euro on Referendum; EC VP Olli Rehn Says Greece Holds the Key; European Market Mixed; European Currencies Make Gains; Hollande Meeting With Obama at the White House; Olympic Torch Touching Down in U.K.

Aired May 18, 2012 - 14:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

RICHARD QUEST, HOST: Flat to fizzy. A late rally for Silicon Valley.

Refer it to a referendum. Tonight, news that Angela Merkel suggests Greece votes on the euro.

And Obama friends President Hollande, growth being the dish of the day.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Cheeseburgers go very well with french fires.

(LAUGHTER)

(END VIDEO CLIP)

QUEST: I'm Richard Quest. I mean business.

Good evening. From a social network to a public network. Facebook is now trading on the stock exchange, and tonight we look at how Facebook is leading us into this brave new social media world. We will be looking at the price of Facebook shares, we'll be considering the way the market reacted, and most crucially what it means for social media.

Also tonight, we're considering and we'll bring you up to date with these latest developments where it's now being reported that Angela Merkel has suggested to the Greek prime minister, the interim prime minister, that there is a referendum on the euro at the same time as the election.

Putting all this into perspective, Andy Bunday's with us. This is our cartoonist for tonight. You really are going to try and -- well, you're not trying, you're succeeding -- to marry up the stories of Facebook and the euro fiasco.

ANDY BUNDAY, POLITICAL CARTOONIST: Well, I think so, Richard. I think it is face the music time. This is what David Cameron said earlier in the week when he said you've got to decide whether you're going to make up or break up, so that's the theme of this. It's marrying the two stories together.

So, we've got Angela Merkel and we've got Francois Hollande. I like the fact that their first meeting was blighted by this lightning strike.

QUEST: Bringing the two stories together. You keep drawing, and we'll continue our coverage tonight. And we will be looking very closely at the Merkel story and the euro story as the program goes on.

But we start with Facebook shares, which are trading with gains of around 8 percent. Earlier on, it all began not with a bang, but a whimper.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

(NEW YORK STOCK EXCHANGE OPENING BELL)

(END VIDEO CLIP)

QUEST: His bell sounds far worse than mine, although he's much richer than me, now, $19 billion. Mark Zuckerberg rang in the NASDAQ open and a new era for Facebook and for social media. The company shares started trading a few hours later.

The IPO hype did not follow through. The gain of 11 percent evaporated to zero, pulling back slightly now. Zuckerberg says even though the company's gone public, its vision has not changed.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MARK ZUCKERBERG, CEO, FACEBOOK: This all seems like a big deal. Going public is an important milestone in our history. But here's the thing. Our mission isn't to be a public company. Our mission is to make the world more open and connected.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

QUEST: Let's connect ourselves to Ali Velshi. What's your mission, Ali Velshi? To buy one stock of Facebook? Because if I'm --

ALI VELSHI, CNN CHIEF BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: Can't do it.

QUEST: Exactly! So, never mind a connected world, Mr. Zuckerberg. What's gone wrong today?

VELSHI: There's something wrong in the trading mechanisms. Normally on a tech IPO, even though the market opens at 9:30 Eastern, sometimes they don't list until about 10:30. And as you know, there's always an imbalance --

QUEST: Right.

VELSHI: -- between buyers and sellers, and it takes a while to reconcile this so you don't have wacky trading. It took more than an hour longer than it should have. So, by 11:30 AM we still weren't trading Facebook stock.

We knew that there were indications that it would be around $42, and I was reporting that earlier. First trade comes out at $42.05, and this thing very quickly drops down to its offering price of $38. And I know a lot of people who got their orders filled at $38.

Look at it now. It's $40.63, 7 percent higher. That's not terrible, Richard, but it's not what you expected from the most highly-anticipated IPO possibly in the world

QUEST: Right.

VELSHI: So, there's something to be said about this. Zynga, which makes all its money off of Facebook, plummeted, halted, 13 percent lower. So, this is not the way this -- this didn't work out the way we thought it was going to work out.

QUEST: OK. I don't -- one quick question, Ali. Let's not worry about Facebook for the moment. One of -- the thing that interests me about today is not whether Facebook succeeds or fails, but that social media and the social media companies are now well and truly entrenched into the --

VELSHI: Sure.

QUEST: -- the investment community.

VELSHI: They're in the big game, now, although the social media index, SOCL, it's an exchange traded fund here in the United States, is down 4 percent or something today.

But here's the reality. Richard, you remember well -- I mean, you remember a lot of things. You remember before there was even cable. But remember when AOL was out there and they'd give you those little discs and you'd -- the internet was about a portal where you got all this information --

QUEST: Right.

VELSHI: -- that you wouldn't know where to get anywhere else. And then it moved into internet being about search. So, you go Google, there's nothing on the page except a little place for you to ask any question you can possibly answer, and the smartest experts in the world will answer it.

What Mark Zuckerberg and social media want to do is make the internet into a curated journey through life, curated by your friends and the community - -

QUEST: Oi!

VELSHI: -- you choose. A completely different way of looking at the web. Look, we do it. Richard, I follow you on Twitter --

QUEST: Right.

VELSHI: -- because I want to know what you're thinking, what you're reading, what you're saying.

QUEST: All right.

VELSHI: They want the world to go that way.

QUEST: What price are you prepared to pay for your one share of Facebook?

VELSHI: I put in a limit order up to $90 and it won't fill. I got people who filled it at 38 bucks. I just want one for the experience for reporting on how it is you buy a stock. I haven't successfully been able to execute a trade, so there's something very wrong with what's going on.

QUEST: Right.

VELSHI: For one stock, I don't care what I pay. I just would like the order to go through.

QUEST: Ali Velshi in New York, who's still trying to open up his wallet, which is a rare event for all concerned.

And I need to clarify what we started with at the beginning. The reports that Angela Merkel had asked the Greek prime minister to have a referendum at the same time as this election is now being denied, not only by Angela Merkel's office, but now by the prime minister's office. And it was prime ministerial aid that originally put the story out there in the first place.

So, it's not only Facebook that's in confusion, perhaps, today. There is a lot of confusion over exactly who said what when Merkel spoke to the Greek PM. But it seems as if the referendum issue is not as hot as it was 20 minutes ago.

Let's go back to Facebook. I'm joined by a former Facebook employee. David Morin is an original member of the Facebook team. He's a shareholder. He went on to co-found the social network Path, and he joins me, now, from San Francisco.

Good to have you on QUEST MEANS BUSINESS. The core question to you is, again, not so much really about Facebook. It continues this theme that social media is no longer at the periphery. It is now in the mainstream, and with that goes the mainstream companies.

DAVE MORIN, CO-FOUNDER AND CEO, PATH: It's good to be here.

QUEST: Can you hear me?

MORIN: Yes, I can hear you.

QUEST: So --

MORIN: What's the question?

QUEST: So, again, so the question is, if you take Facebook and the way in which it's gone from nothing to what it is today, that is a reflection on the entire way our lives have changed in relation to social media. Would you agree?

MORIN: Yes, I would definitely agree. I think that -- the time is now. This is an incredibly momentous day for the internet business.

I think that Facebook has sort of proven that focusing on the long term, giving people more tools to share and more tools to share information and to connect, these are things that are fundamental to the human condition, and it's something that --

QUEST: Right.

MORIN: -- is now also very big business.

QUEST: Do you see any inherent conflict between the social media companies -- Facebook, Zynga, your own, for example -- and the investment community? Ultimately, can the two live with each other, the stock market and the companies?

MORIN: I think so. At the end of the day, both the market and Facebook or Path, we're all about helping information flow more efficiently. And so, I think that if anything, Facebook coming to the market, finally sort of brings together two incredibly important ways of sharing information and ways that the world is now working.

QUEST: Was there a moment during your whole Facebook experience when you -- or maybe still tell me the moment when you realized that this was going to change pretty much a billion people's lives around the world.

MORIN: There were many times, but I would have to say one of the more important moments was when we launched the Facebook platform in 2007. We only had about 24, 25 million users, and we invited outside software developers to build software --

QUEST: Right.

MORIN: -- on top of Facebook. And the day after we launched the platform, a few of the initial early developers had attracted over a million users --

QUEST: Wow.

MORIN: -- in under 24 hours. And I think at that moment, we sort of saw the power of Facebook to not just help users but also to help other businesses really be successful in a new kind of way.

QUEST: Sir, can I ask you a very personal question? And you can tell me where to stick it if you like.

(LAUGHTER)

QUEST: But as a result of today, are you now a seriously wealthy man who can afford to buy dinner?

MORIN: I could certainly buy you dinner.

QUEST: I think we'll take that as a yes. Thank you very much, good to have you on the program. Many thanks, indeed, for joining us.

Now, I need to recap. In the past hour, we've had reports that Chancellor Merkel suggested that Greeks hold a referendum on euro membership. That has since been denied. When we come back after a moment, Facebook to one side, Olli Rehn, the European Commissioner, is having his say. QUEST MEANS BUSINESS. It is coming up.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

QUEST: More chaos and confusion tonight over whether or not the German chancellor did in fact ask or invite the Greek prime minister to hold a referendum on euro membership at the same time as next month's election.

The German government has denied reports that Mrs. Merkel wants Greece to hold such a referendum of the eurozone. According to a statement from the interim Greek prime minister's office, she suggested the idea in a phone call with the Greek president Karolos Papoulias. The planned vote would have been held alongside next month's parliamentary elections.

So, now a spokeswoman says there's no truth to the report. Mrs. Merkel will soon join Francois Hollande and the other G8 members in the US meeting President Obama for this week's G8 summit.

The European Commission vice president Olli Rehn says the future of the euro is now firmly in the hands of the Greek people. The economics commissioner told me he hopes Greece chooses to stay.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

OLLI REHN, VICE PRESIDENT, EUROPEAN COMMISSION: Greece and Europe are better off with Greece inside the euro. We want Greece to stay in the euro. That's why we have put together a very far-reaching and ambitious program of economic reform and fiscal restructuring, which will help Greece to return to growth through reforms.

And it's about commitment to this program. It is -- I see it as a solidarity pact, so that it is a pact between 16 euro area member states, their parliaments, and Greece, and the Greek parliament. And it's in every party of this pact should respect their commitments. And that's why the Greek citizens and the political leaders are expected to respect this commitment.

QUEST: But the stakes could hardly be higher, could they, Vice President? If -- I know you don't want to speculate on the result of it, but the stakes really could not be higher, not only for Greece and its membership in the euro, but for the eurozone itself.

REHN: Of course, it's a very serious situation. But it is essentially now in the hands of the Greek people.

QUEST: The contagion to Spain and the Spanish banking system, which we're seeing today, and we've seen over the last couple of days, their -- the fires are smoldering and there's no time to lose, or you will be facing a full-blown banking crisis in Spain.

REHN: The Spanish government is taking very decisive action in order to reform the banking sector, especially the savings banks. And several very important decisions have been taken recently concerning Bankia some time ago, concerning the reevaluation of assets, troubled assets, in the rest of the banking sector, as well as a plan of restructuring and recapitalization of the banking sector.

This work is now going on, and we fully support Spain in these efforts, including the very important part, which is independent evaluation of impaired assets and their consequences.

QUEST: It may be too late. We could be facing -- I mean, I'm trying not to be apocalyptic here, but we could be facing the first in the next downward leg as the result of a banking crisis.

REHN: Of course, I'm fully aware that many things should have happened earlier in many member states of the European Union, but that's water under the bridge, and now we have to look to the present and to the future.

QUEST: When David Cameron says "make up or break up" and the governor of the Bank of England says the eurozone is tearing itself apart, it's not very helpful, is it?

REHN: We tend to often get very wise policy advice from our European non- euro area partners. Of course, we are fully aware of the situation by ourselves, and we are doing our best to tackle the problems.

And something which is not always taken into account is that the European Union is in these issues quite a complicated and complex institutional creature. It does not make the decision-making easy. But within that frame, we are taking as bold and decisive action as possible.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

QUEST: Olli Rehn, the European Commissioner. Fitch has downgraded five Greek banks. The banking sector problems in Greece and Spain hit the stock markets everywhere in Europe, except for those two countries themselves.

(RINGS BELL)

QUEST: The Fitch downgrades happened after the close last night. Major European banks fell sharply after Moody's downgraded. Lloyds and RBS both fell more than 5 percent, the FTSE was down.

Strong day for lenders in Greece and Spain, though. I tell you, it's a rum old world. Spain's Bankia recovered all its losses on Thursday and then some, up 23.5 percent. One of the downgraded Greek banks, Alpha, was up more than 10 percent.

In this rum world, today's Currency Conundrum. During the Russian administration of what's now Alaska, some bank notes there were printed on a rather unconventional material. Was it velvet, walrus skin, or wood? The answer later in the program.

European currencies made gains against the dollar. Since we heard the news from Greece this afternoon, who knows what's happening. The single currency still bouncing back. These are the rates. It's complicated. The rates to the break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

QUEST: Some of Facebook's employees became millionaires, some became billionaires, at least on paper. Dan Simon --

(RINGS BELL)

QUEST: -- is at Facebook's headquarters in California, where the opening bell was rung by Mark Zuckerberg. Is there a feeling of general love of humanity there as they all sort of -- fill their boots and head off to the bank?

DAN SIMON, CNN SILICON VALLEY CORRESPONDENT: Well, if there isn't, there should be, right? I spoke to a Facebook executive a short time ago. He described the mood as one of excitement. People were energetic as the bell was rung. In terms of the way that the stock is priced right now, didn't have much of a reaction to it. I think they're waiting to see how the day unfolds.

But just to kind of give you a sense as to what happened, you had all the employees having an all -- all-nighter, if you will. The call these things "hack-a-thons." They get together, try to come up with some new features for the site, collaborate, come up with some new ideas.

And then, at 6:00 AM, all the employees got together in the main Facebook courtyard where Mark Zuckerberg rang the bell along with his senior executives by his side.

Right now, employees are either going home and going to sleep or they're going back to work. Right now, things are basically over and the mood is a bit more subdued, but boy, things were electric earlier, Richard.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

(CROWD CHEERING)

(END VIDEO CLIP)

QUEST: Dan Simon, who is in California for us this evening. Dan, we thank you for that.

In 2010, the digital consumer expert Jeff Cole gave Facebook five years. He said it would suffer the same -- or could suffer the same fate as MySpace and Bebo. Users would eventually move on. Then, Facebook at around 500 million, now it's more than 900 million. Jeff Cole's with me from CNN in Los Angeles.

I think the way you put it to me was that the moment your parents were on Facebook, you no longer want to be there. I -- your timing may be slightly off, but do you still hold to that view, that eventually obsolescence is built into Facebook?

JEFF COLE, CENTER FOR THE DIGITAL FUTURE, USC: Absolutely. Incidentally, happy Facebook Day, Richard.

(LAUGHTER)

COLE: Absolutely. We actually have -- we have evidence to support that, but first very briefly, let's give them their due on this day. This is an amazing day for them. There are over 900 million users, there's not a brand who doesn't wake up every day thinking about what they're going to do on Facebook. It's already changed the world in Egypt and Tunisia, so let's celebrate with them.

But we've already seen since I said that on your show about a year and a half ago, we're seeing a somewhat serious drop off in the US, Canada, and the UK in Facebook users.

Earlier this week, we saw General Motors decide that advertising on Facebook wasn't a good use of their money. We're seeing increasing privacy concerns. So, absolutely. We still think it's like a night club and people will go away eventually.

QUEST: OK. So, back to your fundamental point, which I think is well worth reminding us what the change they've made, there is no doubt, Jeff, that their arrival on the stock market today cemented social media within the, if you like, the traditional world.

COLE: Absolutely. Although, I would argue that's been true for about two or three years now. Social media's gone from being a fad -- we think Facebook may be a fad, but social media, the first thing that's caused people to log onto the web more than to check their e-mail, it's an established part of media.

And as I mentioned, there's not a media company or a brand that doesn't think about Facebook and social media every moment.

QUEST: It's your job to think about where this goes next. So tell me, where does it go next?

COLE: Well, I -- what I said on your show and I still believe, as I said a year and a half ago, it's going to grow for the next five years. We think it'll cross a billion. But eventually, we think it begins to collapses of its own weight, and we're seeing some signs of that.

But I don't think it ever goes away. I think Facebook's going to end up --

QUEST: Right, but --

COLE: Oh, I --

QUEST: Sure --

COLE: I was just going to -- I think Facebook's going to end up as the place you go to communicate with your mother and father and aunts and uncles.

QUEST: Right. But then, what's -- and I suppose what we're looking for now is the next iteration. What is -- what comes after Facebook?

COLE: Of course, if I could tell you that precisely, I wouldn't be talking to you from your studio, I'd be talking to you from my private island, which a few Facebook people may be in the process of buying. But we think it's going to be smaller, more specialized communities.

We don't think Google Plus is ever going to get over 70, 80 million, which is not so bad. Path -- and you just had the CEO on -- I think is also going to be at the 50, 60, 70, 80 million. We don't think anything is going to be a billion people. We think it's going to move into smaller, much more specialized communities.

QUEST: And we will talk more about this in the future, because having you on this program is the only certainty that we look forward to. Many thanks, indeed, Jeff, for joining us from Los Angeles.

Last night, we all gave our predictions -- excuse me, I'm quite hoarse -- of where Facebook stock would be trading right now. This is the ones from the office, from the team at -- in the newsroom. Alison joins us now from New York. Jim Boulden is with us, too.

Alison, you reveal your price for where you said it would be trading now.

ALISON KOSIK, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Egg on my face. I said $90. If you can see this, on this paper --

QUEST: What?

KOSIK: -- I wrote $90. I thought the stock would be at $90.

(QUEST RINGS BELL)

KOSIK: Listen, Richard, I bought into the hype, I really did. Is that crazy? And look how it's doing, tell me about it. I'm just as surprised as the next guy. But yes, clearly I am way off, I read this way wrong.

QUEST: All right.

KOSIK: But then again, I can get caught up in the hype just like anybody else.

QUEST: All right.

JIM BOULDEN, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Hold on, let me -- let me --

QUEST: Go on, what did you get?

BOULDEN: $48.

(LAUGHTER)

BOULDEN: Which I should take the 8 and put it into a zero, and then I'd be spot on.

QUEST: And I get $47.50. And the price at the moment, tell us about what's happening at the moment, Alison.

KOSIK: Well, at the moment, it looks like Facebook shares are making up some ground from almost falling flat when they were first out of the gate, Facebook shares up about 5.5 percent, trading at $40.10. That's a little bit above what the -- that first share traded for at $42.05.

Listen, this is -- this is definitely less than expectations. The good thing is that it is trading above the IPO price, but clearly this has been a messy debut, if you talk to many investors, Richard.

QUEST: Mess. A messy debut, and we will cover your embarrassment, Ms. Kosik, at $90 a share. Have a good weekend. Jim, thank you very much.

BOULDEN: Yes.

QUEST: Many thanks. By the way, who won our bet?

BOULDEN: I couldn't find anybody.

QUEST: I found it, I've got it! She -- Eve, one of our senior editors. Eve won at $43 a share.

BOULDEN: That's still way off.

QUEST: Oh, stop it!

(RINGS BELL)

(LAUGHTER)

QUEST: When we come back, from Facebook to the future of Europe, a dramatic day, and our resident cartoonist is still busy wrapping it all up. QUEST MEANS BUSINESS, good evening to you tonight.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

QUEST: Hello. I'm Richard Quest. There is more QUEST MEANS BUSINESS in just a moment. This CNN though and on this network, the news always comes first.

Hours in the debut on the Nasdaq, I should think, and Facebook stock is trading only a dollar or two higher than where it began. Anticipation and hype was sky-high for the IPO. The last listed debut, it's bringing down other tech and social media stocks.

Germany has denied report that Angela Merkel wants Greece to hold a referendum on its membership of the Eurozone. A statement from the Greek Prime Minister claimed, the German Chancellor suggested the idea to Greece's President. A German government spokesman told CNN in the past (inaudible), "There is no truth to those claims."

France's newly-inaugurated President, Francois Hollande, sat down at the White House on Friday with Barack Obama. The two leaders held one-to-one meeting before this weekend's G8 which takes place at Camp David. They discussed Europe's economy and the future of Afghanistan.

The Olympic flames touched down in the U.K. It was flown in from Athens, accompanied by a delegation including the Princess Royal, London's player Boris Johnson and David Beckham. The torch will now travel nearly 13,000 kilometers on a relay around the U.K.

Was it worth it? The price that was paid? Felicia Taylor at the New York Stock Exchange.

FELICIA TAYLOR, CNN BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: Well, Richard, in my opinion, honestly -- you know, $38 a share was fairly-valued and the price is being reflected by the fact that it hasn't popped up more than, sort of, 5 or 10 percent. That means, the underwriters did their job.

But it's very hard to compare Facebook to any other IPO that has ever been offered because the valuation was already $1 billion. That's the first company to ever have that kind of valuation as an IPO. I'm joined now by Ken Polcari of ICAP Securities. You know, it's something you can't compare.

KENNETH POLCARI, MANAGING DIRECTOR, ICAP CORPORATES: No, you can't. And it's very difficult for people to try to make that comparison because it almost stands in a league on its own, right, quite honestly.

But you made the point because the underwriters did an, actually, a fantastic job assessing the demand in this country and around the world for people that wanted in on this deal. And it was, in fact, fairly-priced. And you could see it by, in fact, the way it opened and the way it's trading.

TAYLOR: But if you compare this to something like LinkedIn which had its shares opened and, literally, double and, you know, even triple where it is right now, it's still not a fair comparison because LinkedIn only had 7 million shares out there, not 400.

POLCARI: So, see, and that's exactly the key. The float was so small in LinkeIn and they created all that hype that it had nowhere to go but up because it was only 7 million shares. When you talk about Facebook, exchange deal was almost 500 million shares. It's not going up a hundred percent or even 50 percent.

And, look, as it was, it opened up 12 percent or 11.8 percent is where it opened up which is probably fair. And, you know, the market actually was positive today. When we walked in, it was winning. And it felt like the market was going to be okay. So, that gave it a little bit of a boost.

But, for sure, it didn't open up -- there was talk this morning out of Germany, people willing to pay $74 each share and it was something to -- and, you know, where all we hear (ph) -- almost comical because it was -- it's almost impossible to think that that would have happened in the stock.

TAYLOR: And I will tell you, a little earlier -- not that I'm pointing fingers to anybody, but there was a little comical -- a humor early on because -- obviously the Nasdaq is an electronically-traded exchange, there's still, somewhat, a few human blood to the New York Stock Exchange - - but what happened was a lot of orders didn't get filled. What does that mean. That's not -- it's actually not funny and could be very serious.

POLCARI: No, actually, what happened was, as we approached the 11:00 hour when it was scheduled to begin trading, there was this influx of waterfall (ph) that came in to Nasdaq and it really -- what it really did was clog the system and then it put it off for another half an hour.

And when you started, the sense was -- then there started to be a sense of nervousness that it almost going to be a complete check failure. And people were once again talking about what happened in Badge Hill (ph) three - four weeks ago.

TAYLOR: Or even a flash crash.

POLCARI: Or even a flash crash. But, in fact, Nasdaq could get it open but they encountered numerous problems afterwards in terms of their service, not only in Facebook, but in a lot of other stocks that traded on Nasdaq because they're all on that same server.

And, so, even as of right now, there are some people who have not gotten a reports from the opening and some people are even questioning whether those reports are even -- are even going to come through.

TAYLOR: And that, honestly, Richard, can be very serious because if those orders don't get filled in real time, they question the price and they may not accept them which means that they can question whether or not those orders have been filled and, actually, and deny them.

QUEST: Anchor. And the specialists on the New York Stock Exchange floor are having a certain amount of Sheldon Freud (ph) at the Nasdaq's discomfort for an all-electronic system. Thank you, Felicia. Felicia Taylor in New York.

David Downgrade, The Facebook Offering, New Government And Even an Act of God. So, please remember, we'll give you the bigger picture, literally, after the break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

QUEST: The answer to the Conundrum, during the Russian administration of what's now Alaska, what was early bank notes printed on. The answer is B, walrus skin, which is quite fitting for an economy based on the "fur" trade.

Now, to our review of the weekend -- excuse me, what's the next story (ph) -- Andy Bunday, good to see you.

ANDY BUNDAY, ILLUSTRATOR: Good to see you, Richard.

QUEST: You have beautifully combined all the stories.

BUNDAY: You're so kind. How generous of you. Well, we said earlier on Face the Music, not Facebook, make-up or break-up time. So I said, "David Cameron". David Cameron wrote on the Eurozone's wall and well, we know, Angela, Francois and about 600 million other people don't like this. I know only (inaudible).

But, you know, the result, you know, Angela and Francois are now friends, sort of.

QUEST: Beautifully done. The way -- to get all this together --when you get a day like today and I love -- this is going to be -- this is all --

BUNDAY: I'm liking this idea of the lightning strike is going to define their relationship -- you said, "an act of God". I think it's a little --

QUEST: Harry Potter.

BUNDAY: Yes, sort of the Harry Potter. Then you got the glasses and you're going to need to be a magician to conquer growth without horror. So, he's going to have to do some --

QUEST: So, he is the leader whose name shall -- who shall not be named. When you try and combine the Facebook and the Eurozone crisis, is it just a thought.

BUNDAY: I think, ideas come through the drawing, I think, is the thing that happens. Once you start to think about it and you think, OK, it's Facebook -- it's face something. What are we going to do. Is it Greece book. What are we going to call it. No, it's facing us, it's facing death. It's face the music. You know, and I think, ideas really flow. That's the way the process works. I don't know where they come from. I get them for free and I sell them on T.V.

QUEST: I'll pay you with a Facebook share if we could afford one. Good to see you. Lovely, I love it. Absolutely. It's going on the wall in the office.

Jenny Harrison is at the World Weather Center this evening and Jenny is claiming that she got a close-up Facebook price than the rest of us. Come on, Ms. Harrison.

JENNY HARRISON, AMS METEOROLOGIST: No, Eve won the price. You said, Eve got it. Now, I kept it at $45 but I have to say, compared to yours -- hey, whatever. Hey, listen, you're a guest there, Mr. Bunday, you should be pulling him to draffles (ph), don't you think, to do your charts for you. They're not too strong, are they. Really. You know.

QUEST: How's the weather like in Budapest this weekend. I'm going now, filming.

HARRISON: It's not being good across Southeast Europe. Actually, strong storm. They even have -- tonight, a tornado touched down in Bulgaria. But I do want to talk about the fact that we are getting at some better weather across the Northwest.

In particular, the U.K., the reason I mentioned that, of course, is because of the torch relay for the Olympics. So, in fact, the first few days, it looks pretty good. It's going to be in the west of the U.K. And, actually, from that, Tuesday onwards, we should be experiencing some pretty good sunshine across much of the country.

It hasn't been any of that within the last few hours and more rains as well across Western Europe although, really, the most persistent has been across with the U.K. But I mentioned that tornado -- that's, of course, coming from a very strong thunderstorm. Now, it didn't touch down for 30 minutes. It was, actually, a properly formed thunder cloud for 30 minutes.

But, obviously, it did touch down. Although, we haven't had that much report though coming from there in a way, of the damage, but, so certainly, there was one coming from the strong storms. This is a system that's leaving very, very steady eastward. And then in between this and the one out across the west, we have got this warming up trends and a cold zone a moment too soon for most.

And, in fact, it will be feeling a whole lot better across the Northwest. They'll lower that cold there (ph). Look at that blue, it finally pushes almost out of the picture. And that means temperature should be pretty much close to the average.

Now, having settled that, because of those strong thunderstorms, there are some warnings Friday and Saturday from Southwest to Southeast.

But let's head to the middle of Europe, to Germany, and have a look at conditions for the big game on Saturday, the Champions League Final, of course of Chelsea versus Bayern Munich. And the kick-off is late evening, so it's going to be pretty much to the sun's setting time. It's going to be mostly clear, light winds. Good temperatures couldn't be better, anyway, for such important match.

But you can see the rains pushing it again to the west over the next couple of days. More snow, that's the white you can see to the mountaintops. And there are some rain working its way into more southern areas of the U.K. But, as I say, generally, from Tuesday onwards, not looking too bad.

Airport delays on Saturday, there's a few but there may not particularly -- like I say (inaudible) and Madrid is sporting (ph)some longer delays and you can that elsewhere again. It's a similar sort of story.

So, exactly, your temperatures: 18 in Paris, 16 in London and, Richard, it should be a pretty good week from that Tuesday onwards in London. Some big sunshine.

QUEST: Jenny Harrison. Many thanks indeed. See you next week. Have a good one.

Now, Facebook's IPO has inspired some "Tweets From The Top". Let's start with PIMCO's CEO and Co-founder Bill Gross who says, "Go, hashtag, Facebook. I don't know how to use it but I know a bubble when I see it."

Jack Dorsey, the Executive Chairman and Founder of Twitter writes, "Slow news day."

Onto AOL's Co-founder, Steve Case. His tweet reads, "Celebrating Facebook's IPO are reflecting on AOL's IPO 20 years ago. Valuation was $70 million. Thought Internet was a fad."

And Mark Zuckerberg's personal Facebook page, "Mark listed Facebook on Nasdaq."

And that is QUEST MEANS BUSINESS for tonight. I'm Richard Quest in London. Whenever you're up in the hours ahead, I hope it's profitable. And this is Eve, the only one who got the price even closely right. Have a good weekend.

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ROBYN CURNOW, CNN CORRESPONDENT: You're watching MARKETPLACE AFRICA and I'm Robyn Curnow. While Africa's newest country is teetering on the brink of war with its neighbor, for months now, relations between South Sudan and Sudan have been deteriorating.

And the conflicts centers there are on what's arguably both country's greatest assets and greatest curse.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

NIMA ELBAGIR, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Heglig oil field in Sudan, close to the contested border with South Sudan. Late last month, it very nearly became the site of all-out war. This is South's possession. Heglig alone produces over half the North's remaining oil.

The devastating occupation of Heglig by southern forces was a body blow to the North in its on-going war of attrition.

DANA WILKINS, CAMPAIGNER, GLOBAL WITNESS: What went wrong it that there's never been a new oil agreement. Under the 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement, there is a deal to split southern oil revenue to 50-50 between Sudan and South Sudan.

That agreement ended with South Sudan's independence. Since then, there has not been, some sort of, financial arrangement so that South Sudan could explore its oil through Sudan's infrastructure.

ELBAGIR: Back to, and the pervasiveness trust between the two sites, a legacy of the 21-year civil war and a deal was always going to be difficult to reach. So, when the wrangling of a transit beast to the northern port reached fever pitch, the South stopped paying and the North responded by confiscating the oil already waiting to ship.

The South promptly shut down oil production.

WILKINS: It's impossible to say who's right. What, sort of, a fundamental truth is is that South Sudan is one of the poorest countries in the world. Sudan is a lower middle income country with more than $38 billion of external debt.

Both are heavily reliant on oil revenues. And they both need, in order to prevent economic collapse, need to act fast on those revenues somehow.

ELBAGIR: At independence, a third of South Sudan's population was already dependent on food aid. In February this year, a month after the shutdown, the government said they had been forced to slash spending by 50 percent.

A new pipeline to the Kenyan port of Lamu is on the cards but even conservatives of Sudan say it would cost billions of dollars and take up to four years to build. So, what is the way for it. The international community has repeatedly attempted to step in with mixed results.

Most recently, the African Union proposed a road map for peace, threatening vague sanctions.

RAMTANE LAMAMRA, COMMISSIONER, AFRICAN UNION: Council will come to the withdrawal of the South Sudan forces from Heglig and calls for the immediate cessation of the aerial bombardment by the Sudan Armed Forces.

ELBAGIR: A lasting solution now still seems out of reach, prompting many to look to China, a major investor in the Sudan's oil sector.

ZACH VERTIN, SUDAN ANALYST, INTERNATIONAL CRISIS GROUP: They opened up Sudan's oil sector. They own the infrastructure. They own the pipelines, the refinery. But its clear that the stability and viability of these states will have a great impact on the Chinese investments as well.

And, thus, how this dispute is resolved and how the oil stand-up is resolved will, in the end, determine the future of Beijing's dual engagement in both Sudan and South Sudan.

ELBAGIR: South Sudan's President traveled to China at the height of the tension, hopeful that the Chinese would use their substantial leverage.

VERTIN: China has very much been caught in the middle of this oil crisis between North and South -- really in a very uncomfortable position, sort of tug-of-war as each side, Khartoum and Juba, try to draw Chinese interests in line with their own.

ELBAGIR: But with its stated policy of non-interference, how far will the Chinese go.

VERTIN (voice-over): China has certainly stretched its approach to foreign policy in the principle of non-interference as far as in the two Sudans as they have arguably (ph) anywhere in the world.

ELBAGIR: The Sudans, it seems, are becoming a test case to China's avowed foreign policy. And what happens next will have an impact far beyond this contested border. Nima Elbagir, CNN Nairobi.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CURNOW: Well, as the world watches to see whether there'll be a new oil war, we speak to the Kenyan Prime Minister about the regional implications for East Africa and the impact on global oil prices.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DR. RAILA ODINGA, PRIME MINISTER, KENYA: If this continues, it is -- then they are going to affect the oil prices. Apart from affecting the oil prices, many of my people are going to die.

(END OF VIDEO CLIP)

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CURNOW: Kenya joins the rest of the world in celebrating the creation of South Sudan nearly a year ago. Now, with a deteriorating situation on their doorstep, the Kenyans have been quick to condemn the recent violence there.

Well, for this week's "Face Time" interview, Jim Clancy sits down with the Kenyan Prime Minister, Raila Odinga to discuss not only Kenya's own recent oil find but also the implication of a possible new war between South Sudan and Sudan.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JIM CLANCY, CORRESPONDENT, CNN INTERNATIONAL: How important, how much of a game-changer is it that oil has now been discovered in Kenya.

ODINGA: Jim, as you know, oil can either be a blessing or a curse. The experience of other African countries confirmed that's the truth. Those countries which have managed oil resources well, and have used the outcome for the benefit of society, then for example, you'd find that in other countries, people neglected other sectors of the economy -- for example food production so that it became next -- the importance of food. Industries were never constructed because oil.

So, one-commodity economy is dangerous, maybe, because it is not sustainable. Therefore, in Kenya, we must avoid the pitfalls that have befallen the other countries on the continent by managing this oil properly.

CLANCY: There is oil in neighboring Sudan as well and you have very close ties. You've had that with South Sudan. Do you see them, after their -- the actions that they took in Heglig by going into that city, by provoking a fight -- are they going to be a reliable partner.

ODINGA: South Sudan, well, you know, the issue of where Heglig belongs is a debatable issue.

CLANCY: The military force -- using military force to try to, in any way, influence it. Is that an acceptable strategy. I know it's disputed.

ODINGA: As you know, they're supposed to have a (inaudible) random. If they're not, again, as they refuse to have done -- and in the South, it's becoming impatient because, as you know, the issue of their use of the oil pipeline through the north has become very contentious.

They are demanding $36 per barrel as the transit costs -- the south oil. If South were to agree with that, then they will get nothing out of their oil completely. So, there is, I think the actions being taken by the South is more out of desperation than anything else.

CLANCY: It must be this -- would you support , at this juncture -- because South Sudan and Sudan very nearly went to war. A.U.-U.N. peacekeepers, should they be put in there. Would you call for that.

ODINGA: Yes. I think that the A.U. peacekeepers are fast -- ought to be there. They needed to be there yesterday. There was the time when Ethiopia was supposed to send -- but they did send no troops. A.U. needs to extend more troops to the border between the North and South.

While they're there, insist that democracy should be done, using independent process. So, that the issue of border disputes is resolved once and for all. If A.U. does not have the capacity to do so then the U.N. should complimented the A.U. process.

CLANCY: The rest of the world just looks on. I mean, will it take a change and would this impact the oil prices to make people take notes.

ODINGA: Certainly, if this continues, it is -- definitely, going to affect the oil prices. And, therefore, international community cannot sit by and just watch this happen. Apart from affecting the oil prices, many more people are going to die.

CLANCY: When you look at the problems in Sudan and with South Sudan today, how do you see the fallout from these conflicts in Sudan right now. What effect do they have in Kenya.

ODINGA: As you know, the previous conflict in the Sudan had a very devastating effect in Kenya because we hosted majority of the Sudanese refugees in Kenya. As we talk right now, there's already an influx of new refugees coming from the South Sudan as a result of this conflict.

So, there is a big fear in Kenya that we may again end up having to lose so many refugees as a result of this conflict. That's why, as a neighbor to Sudan, we want this matter to be dealt with as quickly as possible so the humanitarian crisis is avoided.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CURNOW: You can watch that interview with Kenyan Prime Minister Raila Odinga and many others online at cnn.com/marketplaceafrica. That's for me, Robyn Curnow. See you again next week.

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END