LONDON/WILMINGTON, Delaware (Reuters) – The tide of lawsuits unleashed by BP’s oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico breaks into an Idaho courtroom on Thursday, just as the company’s rivals are counting the cost of a ban on offshore drilling.

Attorneys hoping to lead the legal fight against BP are set to descend on Boise, Idaho, to address a special judicial panel considering how to bring order to the hundreds of civil lawsuits spawned by the spill after a rig explosion on April 20.

HONG KONG/LONDON (Reuters) – BP has tapped HSBC to sell its stake in the Nam Con Son gas project in Vietnam, as it scrambles to hive off $30 billion of assets to pay for the clean-up of the worst oil spill in U.S. history, three sources said.

The British oil giant, which is on a campaign to sell a host of assets from Pakistan to Egypt, said last week it is seeking a buyer for its stake in the Nam Con Son gas project offshore southern Ho Chi Minh City, worth $966 million by one estimate.

LONDON (Reuters) – Tomkins Plc, the British maker of car parts, industrial hoses and bath tubs, backed a 2.9 billion pound ($4.5 billion) takeover offer from Canadian investors that would be the year’s largest leveraged buyout.

Tomkins said a trio of investors owning more than 9 percent had also formally backed the $4.5 billion offer from Onex, Canada’s largest private equity firm, and the C$127 billion Canada Pension Plan, the country’s second-biggest pension fund.

LONDON, July 27 (Reuters) – Tomkins Plc (TOMK.L: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz), the
British maker of car parts, industrial hoses and bath tubs,
backed a 2.9 billion pound ($4.5 billion) takeover offer from
Canadian investors that would be the year’s largest leveraged
buyout.

Tomkins said a trio of investors owning more than 9 percent
had also formally backed the $4.5 billion offer from Onex,
Canada’s largest private equity firm, and the C$127 billion
Canada Pension Plan, the country’s second-biggest pension fund.

LONDON (Reuters) – BC Partners agreed to sell French frozen-food firm Picard Surgeles to rival Lion Capital, highlighting the keen appetite of private equity firms to strike deals in the recession-resilient food industry.

The sale of Picard, which has thrived by persuading France’s fastidious consumers that convenience food can be high-quality, is the country’s biggest leveraged buyout (LBO) since the September 2008 collapse of Lehman Brothers.

LONDON (Reuters) – Royal Bank of Scotland is in exclusive talks with Advent International and Bain Capital over the sale of its payment-processing unit WorldPay, two people familiar with the matter said on Friday.

The private equity duo have about a week’s exclusivity to finalize a deal for the business, which handles about half of all face-to-face debit and credit card transactions in Britain, one of the people said.

LONDON (Reuters) – A string of takeovers has enlivened Britain’s near-moribund mergers and acquisitions (M&A) landscape this week, highlighting pent-up demand for deals among cash-rich corporations and private equity firms.

The timing of such a flurry of activity masks months of work behind the scenes or represents a rush to conclude transactions before the August lull, but it supports the argument made by analysts at JPMorgan Cazenove, Morgan Stanley, Standard & Poor’s, UBS and others, that many of the conditions are in place for a revival in European M&A.

LONDON (Reuters) – The owners of Danish cleaning firm ISS ISSHG.UL have revived plans for a multi-billion euro flotation, asking banks to pitch for roles helping to list or sell the company, three people familiar with the matter said.

ISS is the latest amongst a number of big European companies owned by private equity firms that are gearing up to change hands or return to public markets, as their owners seek to profit from long-held investments.

LONDON, July 22 (Reuters) – Icelandic drugmaker Actavis and
owner Bjorgolfur Thor Bjorgolfsson have agreed a refinancing
deal with lenders led by Deutsche Bank (DBKGn.DE: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) to slash its
billions of euros in debt and restructure the tycoon’s personal
debts.

The agreement, struck after more than a year of talks, moves
Deutsche closer to solving the headache posed by its largest
block of risky loans held over from pre-credit crisis days.

LONDON (Reuters) – The owners of Danish cleaning firm ISS have revived plans for a multi-billion euro flotation, asking banks to pitch for roles helping to list or sell the company, three people familiar with the matter said.

The owners — Goldman Sachs Capital Partners and Swedish private equity fund EQT Partners — are seeking to start a dual-track process toward an initial public offering (IPO) or sale later this year, the sources said.