DealZone

Lufthansa, JetBlue‘s sugar daddy, says it is keeping an eye out for acquisitions in Europe after picking up 19 percent of the U.S. airline, and also said it wants to extend its flight offering in the U.S. market. Though just a stake at the moment, giving JetBlue a much-needed $300 million cash infusion and Lufthansa relatively cheap access to connections through New York’s JFK airport, there is no operational agreement. While that could be on the horizon, its probably no closer than the long-debated lifting of restrictions limiting foreigners ownership to no more than a quarter of a U.S. airline.

But for a really cheap deal, head to Europe. Two offers for ailing airline Alitalia under serious consideration by Italy are both well below market price with that of domestic minnow Air One just one euro cent per share, according to a source close to the talks. Air France-KLM has bid 35 euro cents per share, the source added — giving the carrier a value of about 485 million euros ($712.4 million). Shares of Alitalia, which carries about 1.2 billion euros of debt, were trading down 25 percent at 66 euro cents per share.

Dutch chemical group Akzo Nobel won conditional European approval for its 8 billion pound ($16.3 billion) acquisition of Britain’s ICI to create the world’s biggest paint maker. Akzo agreed to divest activities in Britain, Ireland and Belgium as well as a shareholding in adhesives manufacturer Purbond AG.