(Updates share price activty)

Judging by investor reaction, reports of a more-than $200 billion Chinese bid for Rio Tinto to rival BHP Billiton’s $125 billion informal bid are being taken with a grain of rice. The stock rose 1.3 percent in London after falling more than 2.5 percent in Australia - a good swing, but hardly resembling a $75 billion mark-up. It should be little surprise if BHP’s prowling approach — it has kept its bid informal, which it can do indefinitely — tempts another predator. But Baosteel would need sovereign or other support for such a bid, being a relatively small player compared with the likes of BHP and Rio, and analysts say government involvement would raise howls of protests from other countries. 
    
M&A activity has been more noisy across the Atlantic. Shares in Bayer rose more than 3 percent on talk that Switzerland’s Novartis was interested in the German drugs and chemicals group. One trader quipped, “This rumour goes around every week.”  European media group Bertelsmann says it may buy the rest of leading TV broadcaster RTL Group it does not own, but would not pay more than 82 euros per share for the 10.2 percent stake. That would value RTL’s outstanding shares at 1.3 billion euros ($1.91 billion), close to a 19 percent premium to Monday’s closing price. CommScope’s $2.6 billion bid to buy rival communications equipment maker Andrew Corp won EU approval.  
    
The WSJ’s Deal Journal highlights our report about Blackstone filing for a $2 billion London public offering, saying “one of the greatest investments in private-equity history is about to get even better.” The M&A Law Prof Blog laments “the Wounded and the Dead” deals that are changing the M&A landscape from fertile garden to fecund swamp:
“Can anyone remember when so many deals have either been renegotiated, or are otherwise wounded or troubled?  And I think it is problematical in the long term.  Going-forward, targets and M&A target lawyers will be much more wary, rationally over-negotiating deals in order to tighten up provisions which have come to light as ambiguous or otherwise providing too much leeway to buyers.”