**The speculation about AT&T Inc. buying a satellite company have resurfaced. Again. AT&T is trying to put together a bid for EchoStar Communications Corp. before the end of the year, according to Barron’s financial newspaper.

While AT&T has previously said it does not not need to own satellite assets, rumors of a possible satellite deal had driven shares of Echostar and DirecTV higher earlier this year. EchoStar’s stock, however, has fallen about 24 percent in the past month, tempting AT&T to reconsider a satellte acquisition, Barron’s said.

AT&T’s interest goes back years. AT&T’s predeccessor SBC Communications made an unsuccessful bid for DirecTV in 2003 and forged a partnership with Echostar in 2004.

On Friday, Citigroup upgraded EchoStar from a “hold” to a “buy” rating, citing an attractive valuation and its belief that there is a 65 percent chance that AT&T acquires the satellite company over the next 12 months.

**Bidders for Spanish-language broadcaster Univision Communications‘ music assets are cutting their offers by at least $50 million due to concerns over its artist contracts and access to advertising on the television network, according to the New York Post.

**United Rentals said on Monday it filed a lawsuit against a Cerberus Capital Management affiliate, seeking to force the private equity firm to complete the acquisition of the tool and machinery rental company.

**SABMiller, the world’s second-largest brewer, agreed to buy Dutch rival Grolsch for $1.2 billion in cash to bolster its position in the premium beer market.

(Photo: AT&T Inc. Chairman Randall Stephenson)

Despite media speculation that the auction of Biogen Idec Inc. may be a dud, analysts on Friday said such views may be off the mark — a little like the reports about Mark Twain’s death and his subsequent reaction to them.

“Speculation that the deal is losing steam could be premature,” JPMorgan analysts said in a research report. “We continue to believe that a sale of Biogen is doable with our analysis of M&A parameters suggesting valuations of $85 to $100/share.”

That counters a view on Thursday by Citigroup, which cut its price target on Biogen to $85 from $87, saying the likelihood of an acquisition appeared smaller due to a shorter-than-expected list of bidders. Citigroup put the probability of a takeover at 70 percent, down from 80 percent.

The Biogen auction continues to “move through the process, but there are a lot of moving parts,” one source familiar with the situation told Reuters.

One thing complicating the auction is Biogen’s drug partnerships, sources said. Biogen, which declined to comment on the auction, has a partnership with Genentech Inc. for the drug Rituxan, as well as with Elan Corp. for Tysabri. Under a change of ownership Genentech and Elan have the right to buy Biogen’s rights to those drugs. Biogen also posted lower-than-expected third quarter results last month.

Citigroup said it viewed Pfizer as the “No. 1 contender” for Biogen, but said other potential suitors such as Roche and Johnson & Johnson may not be interested.

“All the big pharma companies have problems with their drug pipelines and need a boost. But they all these companies have a lot going on internally, so I don’t know if anyone can safely absorb a $20 billion company right now,” one source told Reuters.

Despite weakness in the merger market and Biogen’s big price tag — its market capitalization tops $20 billion — strategic buyers still have the potential to get deals done, investment bankers said.

As Biogen said in October when it put itself up for sale, “there can be no assurance that an acquisition of the company will occur.”

Abu Dhabi’s Mubadala Development Co said it bought 8.1 percent of Advanced Micro Devices. It wouldn’t say how much it paid, but at current market values it would currently be worth about $550 million. AMD said in a registration statement with the SEC on Thursday it would sell up to $700  million in stock. Rio Tinto is reportedly considering a counter-bid for BHP Billiton as a defense against a A$140 billion takeover proposal from its bigger mining rival, but analysts say such a move is unlikely.

The Canadian Pension Plan Investment Board formally launched a NZ$1.8 billion ($1.4 billion) bid for a stake in New Zealand’s Auckland International Airport, but Goldman Sachs JBWere said the state pension fund’s plan to restructure the company’s capital base and triple debt would likely kill the deal. U.S. oilfield services group Schlumberger raised its bid for Norway-listed seismic group Eastern Echo to 4.59 billion Norwegian crowns ($840.7 million).

New York Yankees third baseman Alex Rodriguez reportedly striking an agreement in principle to re-sign with the baseball club, according to Deal Journal. It also notes Larry Ellison’s haggling for PeopleSoft may be an indication of how firm he’ll stand by his $17 a share line in the sand for BEA. DealBook digs into reports Rupert Murdoch considered a bid for The New York Times. The FT reports big global private equity players are looking at raising local currency funds in China to win deals there.

Private equity firms may in fact help grow jobs at companies after owning them for a few years and improving the business. Studies are sort of mixed on that.

But one thing studies aren’t mixed on is that in most cases, private equity firms trim the work force after a takeover. It doesn’t win them many high fives from the rank and file, but it does help to boost cash flows and the bottom line.

Union groups have seized on the issue of job cuts in their efforts to make buyout firms Public Enemy #1, particulary as it pertains to issues of wealth disparity and favorable tax status.

So the private equity naysayers will be interested to know that Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co., a firm that unions have attacked with particular zeal, just laid off 1,700 First Data Corp. workers just two months after KKR bought the payment processor.  The layoffs account for about 6 percent of the workforce. (KKR received a “toxic” protest last month on an entirely different issue. ).

“We are in a very competitive market, and to grow our business globally, we need to continually seek better and faster ways to deliver new products and services,” Etheredge said. First Data will end this year with about 29,000 employees, about the same as at the end of 2006, she said.

(Photo. Henry Kravis. Forbes)

Kraft says its all-stock $2.6 billion deal to take a majority stake in Ralcorp Holdings — which takes over Kraft’s Post cereals as part of the deal — is cheaper in tax terms and less damaging to earnings than selling the unit outright. Oracle Corp Chief Executive Larry Ellison says that if his company were to make another offer for BEA Systems, it would be below its original $17-per-share offer. Shares in Tele Atlas fell sharply on market talk that Garmin would not up its bid for the digital map maker. 

British brewer Scottish and Newcastle rejected an improved 7.3-billion-pound ($14.9 billion) bid proposal from Denmark’s Carlsberg and Dutch group Heineken, while mail room equipment maker Pitney Bowes said it would explore strategic options for its U.S. management services business. 3M said it would acquire Aearo Technologies, a maker of personal protection like hearing and eye protectors, from British buyout firm Permira for $1.2 billion in cash. 

The New York Times looks at yesterday’s rumored — and denied — tie-up between UAL and Delta Airlines in the stew of long-simmering talk of an inevitable round of airline industry mergers. The WSJ’s DealJournal asks whether the National Hot Rod Association’s IPO next month will spark a return to market for other sports leagues. The M&A Law Prof Blog digs into the collapse of Cerberus’s United Rentals deal, noting that unlike other recent break-ups, Cerberus is not claiming a material adverse change. “Cerberus has decided that the reputational impact of their actions is overcome in this instance by the economics.”   

Regarding Cerberus pulling out of the $4 billion takeover of United Rentals, Reuters has obtained a request by Steve Mayer of Cerberus to discuss agreement terms and the company’s response that there is “no basis for any discussion.”

Click on the highlighted links to read the letters.

Och Ziff, bless their hearts, pushed through the firm’s IPO today. Despite the naysayers, the credit crunch, the performance of its peers, the market jitters, economic worries…they went ahead and publicly floated a, yep, private investment fund–in this case, a hedge fund.

Some may think they’re crazy, others may think they’re well, what’s the word, gutsy? Or perhaps another word that ends in ’sy’ and rhymes with Fnallsy?

The stock is down 6 percent today, hardly the market debut a company looks for. But today’s fall is to the suprise of few, and frankly, it’s safe to say that some might have expected worse.
    
After all, shares of Fortress Investment Groups and Blackstone, private investment funds that went public this year, have gotten hammered. In Fortress’ case, shares were down around 50 percent recently from its close on Day 1. 
    
So is Danny Och, the young, curly haired, dashing leader of the hedge fund crazy? Perhaps.

But another interpretation is that, to his firm’s credit, the point is to be a publicly traded hedge fund, period. In Och’s case, that means earning a big payout from the shares, but also having a permanent base of publicly traded capital, something that a lot of the hedge funds and private equity firms want.

So instead of yanking the IPO when things didn’t look good, it forged ahead. Certainly, it’s a bruise to the ego when your opening day on the market ends down 6 percent. There probably wasn’t a heck of a lot of champagne popping for the Och Ziff folks.

Then again, maybe there was. Completing an IPO is no easy task. Blackstone President and COO Tony James told Reuters that his firm’s IPO was one of the hardest deals he’s ever been involved with.

Now the question is, will KKR follow Och Ziff? KKR has yet to price its IPO, after filing its S-1 in July. Can Henry Kravis and George Roberts handle the prospect of seeing shares of the firm drop on its opening day? The market will have to wait and see.

(Image: Och-Ziff Capital Management Group visits the NYSE to celebrate its intial public offering. www.nyse.com)

Chief executives cancel conference appearances at the last minute for any number of reasons. Little Bobby’s baseball tournament. Suzy’s recital. A sick pet. A rough night.

But more often then not, there is a non-family/personal reason for doing so, and the market is pretty good at sensing when the missed appearance has nothing to do with a fishing trip. Something is usually up.

For example, when Nasdaq CEO Bob Greifeld canceled his presentation at the Lehman Brothers financial services conference in September, it was amid burning speculation that the exchange was working on a deal with Borse Dubai and Nordic markets operator OMX. Sure enough, a few days after Greifeld scrapped his presentation and canceled a Nasdaq investor day, the exchange unveiled a complex three-way deal with Dubai and OMX.

On Tuesday, Reuters heard that E*Trade’s CEO Mitch Caplan was bailing out on a scheduled presentation at a Merrill Lynch banking conference, fueling market speculation that he might be focusing his energies on getting a deal done instead. After all, the firm’s stock has been on a roller-coaster ride since Monday, and rumors of on-again, off-again talks between E*Trade and rival brokerage TD Ameritrade began to swirl again this week.

At that same conference, Merrill Lynch’s star banker Greg Fleming canceled his appearance. Scheduling conflict? Mmmmm, maybe. But Merrill is reportedly close to announcing the hiring of John Thain , NYSE’s chief, as CEO of the firm, a position some thought Fleming was qualified for.

But Greifeld did make his scheduled presentation at the Merrill conference on Wednesday morning, where he talked about the exchange’s recent acquisitions and outlined his vision for growth.

“Glad I didn’t have to cancel, right?” Greifeld joked at the beginning of his speech. As the exchanges reporter, all I can say is, “Phew.”

** Roche Holding AG’s $3 billion bid to acquire Ventana Medical Systems turned a bit less hostile with the two sides striking a confidentiality agreement. Ventana says it still believes Roche’s $75-a-share takeover offer is “grossly inadequate” but said it hopes Roche could be encouraged to hike its offer if it sees the numbers. Some analysts have said Ventana could be worth up to $90 per share as a stand-alone business and Roche may have to raise its bid — possibly above $100 — to ensure success. Roche’s Franz Humer says you won’t find him anywhere near any bigger deals in Big Pharma. A monster acquisition stifles innovation, it destroys pipelines … let Franz count the ways.  

** The FT reports Morgan Stanley has taken a minority stake in Traxis Partners, the hedge fund group founded by outspoken former Morgan Stanley chief strategist Barton Biggs. It cites people close to the matter as saying Morgan Stanley bought less than 20 per cent of the $1.5 billion fund, which invests in equities, fixed-income, commodities and other securities around the world. Reuters was first to report the talks two months ago.
  
** Citigroup has moved to put out another fire sparked by its sagging share price, reworking a its $4.6 billion stock-swap deal with Japanese brokerage Nikko Cordial to make Nikko a wholly owned Citi unit. Citigroup also said it and Nikko had lowered the price at which the deal could be terminated.   
    
** Mizuho Financial said it would delay the merger of brokerage unit Mizuho Securities and affiliate Shinko Securities by four months after Mizuho subprime write-offs  forced Mizuho Securities to book a net loss in the first half. Mizuho holds about a 15 percent stake in Shinko. The deal, originally set for January, has been pushed back to May 7, and is set to create Japan’s fourth-largest brokerage in terms of assets under management.  
 
** South Korea’s SK Telecom is set to take a $1.1 billion controlling stake in broadband firm hanarotelecom. “There is a lot of relief in the market at the prospect that SK will finally acquire a landline and broadband provider,” said Jin Chang-hwan, an analyst for Goodmorning Shinhan Securities. 
    
** Ukrainian billionaire Gennadiy Bogolyubov has raised his offer for Australian manganese miner Consolidated Minerals to A$1.08 billion ($964 million). Bogolyubov’s private equity firm Palmary Enterprises increased its bid by 20 cents to A$4.70 a share, hoping to silence rival bidder Pallinghurst Resources. Consolidated’s board had already endorsed Palmary’s $4.50 offer over a matching bid from Pallinghurst, which is headed by ex-BHP Billiton chief Brian Gilbertson. 

** Triarc Cos, the restaurant chain led by activist investor Nelson Peltz, said in a filing on Tuesday it made an offer to buy hamburger chain Wendy’s International on Nov. 12, but at a lower price than the range it indicated in July. On July 30, Triarc said it would be prepared to offer between $37 and $41 a share for the hamburger chain. Sources familiar with the situation told Reuters on Monday that Wendy’s was expected to get tentative takeover offers and that Peltz would likely submit an offer by a Monday deadline.
    
** RWE, Germany’s largest power producer, postponed the sale of its American Water unit because of market turmoil and ditched an associated plan to return cash to shareholders. RWE said it did not expect to get an adequate value for the water company now, and was therefore dropping plans for a dividend payout and a share buyback. The stock tanked 6 percent on the news. RWE has not set a new date for the sale. 
    
** The WSJ’s Deal Journal looks at the  storm over Citigroup analyst Prashant Bhatia’s call on E*Trade Financial, focusing on how his suggestion of possible bankruptcy at the online brokerage contrasts with his competitors’ views. Of the 12 analysts that cover the company, eight have “hold” ratings on the stock, one now has a “sell” (Bhatia) and three have some form of a buy rating, according to Thomson Financial. “It will hurt the track record of their recommendations just as they come under the microscope for their year-end salary and performance reviews” the Deal Journal says. 
  
** Britain’s Northern Rock says it has won an injunction restricting publication of information contained in a memorandum sent to parties interested in acquiring the stricken mortgage bank. “Further speculative reporting based on the illustrative information in the memorandum may jeopardize the complex discussions and negotiations taking place in connection with its strategic review,” Northern Rock said in a statement. The memo was posted on the Financial Times newspaper’s Alphaville Web site.

With E*Trade’s shares getting hammered due to mounting credit losses and the specter of bankruptcy, BMO Capital Markets analyst Mike Vinciquerra said the brokerage could be an attractive buy for anyone wanting a piece of the discount brokerage business.

That’s despite E*Trade’s bad bet in amassing mortgage-backed securities on its balance sheet, Vinciquerra said. He believes the company’s banking and brokerage businesses could fetch a premium to current levels.

And he’s listing as potential suitors Citigroup, Wells Fargo and Bank of America – three banks that he said want to make a “big splash” in online investing. It’s just that they are also among the madding crowd of commercial and investment banks heavily exposed, one way or another, to mortgages. We can’t vouch for the smartness of such a move, but it would certainly score on irony.