Microsoft has made its long-rumored takeover approach to Yahoo, in a proposed cash and stock deal worth $44.6 billion. The $31 per share offer represents a 62 percent premium to Yahoo’s closing stock price — but is almost exactly equal to its stock price back in May, when a potential tie-up was leaked to the press. The elephant in the boardroom for this deal is, of course, Google. As Microsoft stated in its letter to Yahoo: “Today, the market is increasingly dominated by one player who is consolidating its dominance through acquisition.” The letter also said that Yahoo rejected an acquisition last February, and noted: “A year has gone by, and the competitive situation has not improved.”

China has muscled in on BHP Billiton’s attempts to buy rival Rio Tinto, with its biggest aluminum producer teaming up with U.S. group Alcoa to buy a 12 percent stake in Rio. Friday’s $14 billion swoop by Aluminum Corp of China (Chinalco) comes days before a regulatory deadline next Wednesday for BHP to make a firm offer for Rio or to walk away.

Societe Generale was studying bid defense options on Friday as a newspaper said Credit Agricole, France’s third-largest bank by value but the biggest in terms of retail branches, had hired Lazard and its own investment bank to study a bid. Top French bank BNP Paribas has already confirmed it will consider bidding for SocGen in the wake of a massive rogue trading scandal.