Electronic Arts Inc is going to shareholders with its $26 a share, $2 billion bid for Take-Two. The target, publisher of the popular “Grand Theft Auto” video games, rejected EA’s unsolicited all-cash offer at the same price last month, a 64 percent premium over Take-Two’s closing stock price on the last trading day before EA first proposed the deal. “We believe Take-Two investors will see our tender offer as the best way to maximize the value of their investment in Take-Two,” EA Chief Executive John Riccitiello said in a statement. Take-Two Chairman Strauss Zelnick has said the bid was “the wrong price and the wrong time,” arguing that EA was trying to buy his company on the cheap just before the April 29 launch of “Grand Theft Auto 4.” Take-Two this week forecast quarterly earnings above Wall Street estimates, saying orders for “Grand Theft Auto 4″ were better than expected.

British bank Barclays is aiming to buy into China’s retail and commercial lenders. Until now, the British bank’s focus in China has been on wholesale and investment banking through its subsidiaries, Barclays Capital and Barclays Global Investors. “We would like to be an active investor rather than a minor stakeholder,” the English-language newspaper China Daily quoted President Robert Diamond as saying. “So, we are still looking for more appropriate opportunities in China’s retail and commercial banking sector.” China limits foreign banks to holding no more than a 20 percent stake in any domestic lender.

CME Group Inc, which runs the world’s largest derivatives exchange, may announce as early as next week a “definitive plan” to buy precious metals mart NYMEX Holdings Inc, according to the Wall Street Journal. The report, which cited people familiar with the matter, said the two derivatives markets operators are expected to agree to NYMEX receiving cash and CME shares worth around $9.5 billion, using Wednesday’s closing prices.

The Philippine government hopes to sell a 24 percent stake in San Miguel Corp in the second half of this year after coming to a settlement with a coconut farmers group that is contesting its ownership. “We are hoping we can get this done in the next semester,” Finance Secretary Margarito Teves told Reuters. The government’s stake in the company, Southeast Asia’s largest food and drinks group, is worth about $740 million.