DealZone

BHP Billiton’s $39 billion battle to take control of Potash is expected to drag on into next year after it failed to win immediate backing from Canadian authorities.

“To some extent the longer it drags on, it might be better for BHP because it reduces the tension, although if someone else comes in like the Chinese it is another game,” said Peter Chilton, an analyst at Constellation Capital Management. *View article *View article on the possibility of a counter bid

“In the fast-paced world of Silicon Valley innovation, Google’s chief dealmaker David Lawee puts many a youthful engineer to shame,” writes Alexei Oreskovic. *View article

MUFG, Japan’s biggest bank by assets, is looking to buy a 15 to 20 percent stake in a bank in South Korea, Australia or Indonesia to tap the region’s growing economy, a senior executive said. MUFG and its domestic rivals have been stepping up their overseas expansion in the face of weak growth prospects at home, writes Jean Yoon and Taiga Uranaka. *View article

Bloomberg reports “as much as 20 percent of hedge funds globally may be liquidated by the first quarter because smaller managers are starved for fees and new capital, according to Bank of America Corp.’s Merrill Lynch & Co. unit.” *View Bloomberg article