Companies have been subject to pressures to look after shareholders by increasing dividends and doing share buybacks and also having to put money into their own pension funds.

We're in the midst of the U.S. reporting season, which looks pretty good. Companies in Europe seem to have been publishing good numbers, so I think the fundamentals are still pretty positive.

France is benefiting from the global upturn we're seeing, with increasing numbers of companies in Asia and the U.S. buying investment goods in particular.

It's definitely the case that pension funds have been reducing their allocation to equities and that's been driven mostly by legislative pressures to reduce their deficits and to match more closely their assets with projected liabilities.

There's a little bit more caution coming into the investment outlook mostly because of fears of higher interest rates in the U.S. and Europe and now Japan.

Within the consumer grocery sector, European companies are shifting their gaze eastwards due to competitive pressures caused by an increase in private labeling and a rise in discounters. However, as with the retail sector, success in Eastern Europe will largely depend on the available logistics network, which is where 3PLs with the necessary infrastructure could play a significant role.