Reuters: Private Equity: Deals of the day -- mergers and acquisitions

Reuters: Private Equity Reuters.com is your source for breaking news, business, financial and investing news, including personal finance and stocks. Reuters is the leading global provider of news, financial information and technology solutions to the world's media, financial institutions, businesses and individuals. // via fulltextrssfeed.com

Deals of the day -- mergers and acquisitions Apr 23rd 2012, 13:44 Mon Apr 23, 2012 9:44am EDT April 23 (Reuters) - The following bids, mergers, acquisitions and disposals involving European, U.S. and Asian companies were reported by 1330 G M T on Monday: ** Swiss food group Nestle is to buy U.S. drugmaker Pfizer's infant nutrition business for $11.85 billion, beating out French rival Danone in the battle for dominance of baby food in fast-growing emerging markets. ** Private equity firm Lion Capital is in talks to sell Weetabix, one of Britain's biggest breakfast cereal producers, to Chinese government-backed food and dairy group Bright Food for about 1 billion pounds ($1.61 billion), banking sources said on Monday. ** Mobile phone group Vodafone has agreed to buy Cable & Wireless Worldwide (CWW) for 1.04 billion pounds ($1.7 billion), giving it a British fixed-line network to relieve the strain on its wireless operations from data-hungry smartphone users. ** Britain's second-biggest drugmaker AstraZeneca has agreed to buy U.S. company Ardea Biosciences for $1.26 billion, giving it a new gout drug to bolster its weak pipeline in a deal that feeds a wave of M&A in the biotechnology sector. ** Australian flu drug maker Biota Holdings has agreed to take over U.S. firm Nabi Biopharmaceuticals to create a $258 million group and move to the United States, where investors value biotech research more highly than in Australia. ** News and information company Thomson Reuters Corp said on Monday it will sell its healthcare business to private equity firm Veritas Capital for $1.25 billion in cash. ** Japanese coffee company UCC Holdings said on Monday it had agreed to buy Geneva-based United Coffee for about 50 billion yen ($613 million). ** Beam Inc plans to buy Pinnacle vodka and Calico Jack rum for $605 million, the company said on Monday, as it seeks a foothold in the large, growing vodka category. ** Sunoco Inc announced exclusive talks with private equity firm Carlyle Group LP on a potential joint venture to run the biggest refinery on the U.S. East Coast, saying it would delay a planned closure of the Philadelphia plant by a month. ** Ferrovial-owned BAA on Monday said it had agreed to sell Edinburgh airport to Global Infrastructure Partners (GIP) for 807 million pounds ($1.3 billion), adding the Scottish hub to an investment portfolio that includes London's Gatwick and City airports. ** Vodka producer Russian Standard has struck a deal to take a stake of around 28 percent in Poland's Central European Distribution Corp, allowing the struggling Polish vodka maker to retire looming debts. ** Qatar National Bank (QNB) is increasing its stake in Iraq's Mansour Bank to 51 percent from 23 percent as it seeks further opportunities to expand in the region, the lender said on Monday. ** Europe's largest drugs distributor Celesio is set to significantly boost its stake in Brazil's largest drugs distributor Panpharma from currently 50.1 percent, two people with the matter said. ** The 1 billion pound ($1.6 billion) sale of British oil services firm Acteon by majority shareholder private equity firm First Reserve has begun after information on the company was sent to potential buyers, banking sources said. ** Italian builder Salini sees a merger with Impregilo generating recurring synergies of more than 100 million euros from 2015 in terms of core earnings, slides at a presentation showed on Monday. ** Payment processor Fidelity National Information Services Inc has acquired ICS Risk Advisors and Memento Inc expanding its risk, fraud and compliance management segment, the company said on Monday. ** City National Bank, a wholly owned subsidiary of City National Corp has agreed to buy First American Equipment Finance in an all-cash deal. Link this Share this Digg this Email Reprints

You are receiving this email because you subscribed to this feed at blogtrottr.com. If you no longer wish to receive these emails, you can unsubscribe from this feed, or manage all your subscriptions