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

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Deals of the day -- mergers and acquisitions Jun 20th 2012, 14:02 Wed Jun 20, 2012 10:02am EDT June 20 (Reuters) - The following bids, mergers, acquisitions and disposals involving European, U.S., Canadian and Asian companies were reported by 1400 GMT on Wednesday: ** Rupert Murdoch's News Corp made a $2 billion takeover offer for Australia's Consolidated Media Holdings , boosting top shareholder and billionaire James Packer's warchest as he abandons media in favor of casinos. ** Chevron Corp will take a 50 percent stake in two exploration blocks licensed to Kosmos Energy Ltd offshore Suriname and will develop any commercial discoveries. ** Blackstone Group LP and BC Partners are jointly bidding for frozen foods group Iglo, hoping to divide the spoils rather than fight it out in what could be Europe's largest buyout of the year, a person familiar with situation said. ** Swedish packaging firms Korsnas and Billerud said they would merge their operations to create a leading player in an industry which has sought consolidation to deal with declining demand. The deal involves holding company Kinnevik selling its Korsnas packaging operations to slightly bigger rival Billerud for 2.7 billion crowns ($388 million) to form a combined group called BillerudKorsnas with annual sales of about 20 billion crowns. ** Britain's Sage Group entered the fast-growing and relatively undeveloped Brazilian software market by buying Folhamatic Group, a provider of accounting, tax, payroll and regulatory software to small businesses. The company expects to pay 125 million pounds ($196 million) for 75 percent of Folhamatic. ** Mizuho Financial Group said it had agreed to buy a Brazilian unit of Germany's WestLB, the latest move by a Japanese bank to snap up assets amid the euro zone crisis. ** Austrian insurer Uniqa has signed a deal to buy the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development's stakes in some of its emerging Europe units, the Austrian insurer said. ** OMV AG is divesting some British North Sea assets to focus on the West of Shetlands area, the Austrian energy company said. ** Brazil's state-led utility holding company Eletrobras is in talks to buy Spanish utility Iberdrola's stake in a local power distributor in a bid to boost the state's presence and limit foreign involvement in the industry, three senior officials with knowledge of the situation told Reuters. Link this Share this Digg this Email Reprints

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