TomTom, Europe’s top digital navigator can hardly be surprised that U.S. competitor Garmin has swooped in with a 2.3 billion-euro ($3.3 billion) offer for Dutch digital map provider Tele Atlas, and based on investor reaction Garmin should brace for more. TomTom offered to buy Tele Atlas for 1.8 billion euros in July. Then Finnish cellphone maker Nokia offered $8.1 billion for U.S.-based Navteq, Tele Atlas’s only global competitor, signaling the consolidation was underway. Bloomberg reports the bidding war is moving into high gear, quoting Jesper Kruger, who helps manage about $64 billion at ATP in Copenhagen as saying TomTom could increase their offer by at least 20 percent. The FT says Garmin has invited the Tele Atlas board to a meeting within the next week to seek support, but has said it will pursue the offer even if it is not backed by the board.

The Deal Journal asks whether Bank of America’s push to get its name into investment banking league tables will be remembered for its brevity as it slashes 1500 heads from investment banking. It references an article from today’s WSJ noting that new investment-banking head Brian Moynihan is seen as “presiding over a business soon to be dismantled.”

The New York Times reports Sony Pictures Entertainment could sell half of its young animation studio, which generated recent hits “Surf’s Up” and “Open Season” and could unload even more of its digital visual-effects company, which worked on “Stuart Little,” “The Polar Express” and the “Spider-Man” movies. “Sony Pictures, a unit of the Sony Corporation, has hired the investment bank Houlihan Lokey Howard & Zukin to assess the value of the two divisions. An outright sale of both, which is possible, could bring around $500 million. All told, Sony has invested more than $400 million in the animation and effects businesses over the years.”