MediaFile wrote last week about Steve Ballmer’s world tour to promote Microsoft’s unsolicited takeover bid for Yahoo. Now that the Microsoft has walked away and the odds for Microhoo aren’t looking so hot, Microsoft execs have fanned out across the globe to explain the company’s decision. To Skhirat, Morocco, San Donato Milanese, Italy and Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium, we can now add Seoul, London and Jakarta.

Let’s put them up on the big board!

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Blackstone CEO Steve Schwarzman has had more than his share of negative PR in the last year, with a lavish lifestyle that served as a lightning rod for criticism of the private equity industry. Which makes the following quote, uttered by Schwarzman at an investor meeting in Florida last week, even harder to understand.

Talking about the plight of subprime lenders, he said:

“[It’s like] being a noodle salesman in Nagasaki when they dropped the A-bomb - not a lot of noodles left, and not a lot of people either.”

As Dan Primack of Thomson Reuters’ PE Hub observes: “Yeesh, foot meet mouth.”

Private Equity Insider, which first reported the statement, suggested that it could cause trouble for Blackstone in Japan, where the firm has had an office since last year. A Blackstone spokesman declined to comment when contacted by Primack.

With no news about the only news stateside — Microsoft has no plans for another Yahoo bid, and News Corp is not in talks with Microsoft, Yahoo, or AOL – the Deals Today team turns its attention across the pond.

Best Buy, the world’s biggest electronics retailer, is to pay $2.1 billion for half of Britain’s Carphone Warehouse chain to take on the European consumer electronics market. The deal creates a joint venture that targets a growing appetite for big screen TVs and other gadgets, although it faces a tough economic climate that could depress purchases of iPods and other electronic doo-dads.

Spanish energy group Iberdrola is putting the finishing touches to a bid for UK nuclear power generator British Energy Group and may bid with partners, newspapers reported on Thursday. British newspaper The Times said Iberdrola, which owns Scottish Power, is expected to put forward an offer before a deadline set for Friday by Rothschild, the investment bank handling the sale. France’s EDF also met on Wednesday to give the go-ahead for its bid for British Energy, the Times reported.

Britain’s Enodis, a maker of fast-food fryers, has agreed to be bought by Illinois Tool Works for 1.03 billion pounds ($2 billion), turning its back on the agreed 948 million pounds takeover by U.S.-based Manitowoc. Shares in Enodis opened above the new 280 pence per share offer price, meaning investors believe Manitowoc will come back with a higher offer. Illinois Tool Works (ITW) makes cooking and other kitchen equipment among its broad range of other tools and products, while Manitowoc makes cranes and restaurant equipment.

Other deals:

** Abu Dhabi Commercial Bank bought a $1.23 billion stake in Malaysia’s fourth largest lender, RHB Capital, in a bid to exploit growing commercial ties between the Middle East and Asia.

** South Korea’s Hynix Semiconductor Inc said it plans to buy an 8-10 percent stake in Taiwan rival ProMOS Technologies worth up to $180 million, deepening cooperation in the midst of a lengthy industry downturn.

Sprint Nextel shareholders looking for a shake-up at the struggling wireless company got their wish on Wednesday, as it announced a $14.5 billion joint venture with Clearwire  centered on next-generation WiMax broadbrand. The joint venture will be about 51 percent owned by Sprint, 27 percent by existing Clearwater shareholders, and about 22 for new investors — including Intel, Google, Time Warner and Comcast.  WiMax is designed to blanket entire cities with wireless Web access at speeds up to five times faster than traditional wireless networks, but it is a largely unproven technology.

Carl Icahn may not be quite done with Motorola. The activist investor,  who won two seats on the board and helped pressure the company to split off its cell phone division, raised the stake owned by him and his affiliates to 7.6 percent, according to a regulatory filing released Wednesday. Icahn and affiliates owned 6.4 percent in March.

Dr Pepper Snapple Group shares will start trading in the United States this week, but Wall Street is not welcoming back the soft drink maker with open arms. “When issued” shares debuted last Monday at $29 but fell 11 percent by Friday, closing at $25.80. Analysts are skeptical about prospects for the company, which lacks its own popular beverages in the sports and energy drink segments and gets most of its sales from the United States, where sales of traditional soft drinks are slipping.

Other deals of the day:

* Irish exploration company Providence Resources said it had agreed to buy a portfolio of oil and gas assets in the Gulf of Mexico from Triangle Oil and Gas Inc for $67.5 million.

* A Philippine business clan, the Gokongweis, and Morgan Stanley have expressed interest in buying a 40 percent stake owned by Saudi Aramco in oil refiner Petron Corp, Energy Secretary Angelo Reyes said.

* Nippon Oil Corp said state-run China National Petroleum Corp is considering taking a 49 percent stake in the Japanese refiner’s Osaka refinery.

* French engineering firm Alstom is still keen on forging a tie-up with state-owned nuclear reactors maker Areva, Alstom Chief Executive Patrick Kron said.

* Airbus scrapped talks to sell two French factories to supplier Latecoere, bowing to the global credit crisis for the second time in a month after a similar sale collapsed in Germany.

* Private equity firm Nordic Capital will again extend its offer to buy all shares in Nordic IT services company TietoEnator, until May 16 from May 9, it said.

UBS is tightening its belt by more than a few notches: 5,500 jobs slashed, on top of 1,500 already completed, representing an 18 percent headcount reduction from mid-2007. Like a dieter throwing out all the Ring-Dings from the pantry, the bank is also selling a $15 billion portfolio of subprime loans to BlackRock Inc. Hopeful CEO Marcel Rohner predicted that the end of the mortgage crisis is in sight.

The looming presence of Deutsche Telekom seems to have lit a fire under Sprint Nextel, which is reportedly considering a spin-off or sale of its lesser half. Nextel was acquired in a disastrous $35 billion deal, already subject to a massive fourth-quarter writedown that produced a $29.5 billion loss (yes, that’s billion with a ‘B’). A source close to Deutsche Telekom told Reuters the company had been looking at Sprint ever since the writedown. The Wall Street Journal reported that a company founded by Nextel founder Morgan O’Brien is trying to assemble a consortium of investors to re-acquire Nextel.

You may be done with Microhoo, but Microhoo isn’t done with you. Jerry Yang told Reuters that Yahoo is still open to further talks with Microsoft and expressed “mixed feelings” about events at the weekend, when talks broke down. Investors’ feelings weren’t so mixed — they sent Yahoo shares down 15 percent. His willingness to listen produced a small bump in Yahoo shares in European trading on Tuesday.

More Deals: 

** French bank Credit Agricole said it had abandoned a plan to bid for Italy’s Banca delle Marche, leaving Banca Popolare dell’Emilia Romagna in the frame. Agricole’s Italian unit Cariparma had been attempting to buy a majority stake of 52 percent in Banca delle Marche with an offer of 1.7 billion euros ($2.63 billion), according to the charitable foundation that is selling the holding.

** Advertising group WPP Plc has urged Taylor Nelson Sofres to engage in talks over a possible offer. British-based Taylor Nelson said it had rejected a 230 pence a share, or 950 million pound ($1.9 billion) offer from WPP, saying it preferred to press ahead with talks on a nil-premium merger with Germany’s Gfk.

Picture: Rory Sabbatini of South Africa wears a unique belt buckle, REUTERS/Hans Deryk

Christian video site GodTube has been blessed with a $30 million funding round from hedge fund GLG Partners, according to a report by paidContent.org, valuing the company at a whopping $150 million.

GodTube, billed by the L.A. Times as a “who’s who of U.S. Christianity,” has been racking up the page views with a “holy trinity” of user-generated video, social networking and a live webcasting service known as The Godcaster that allows churches to stream sermons and other events. In the same article, former CBS executive and GodTube CEO Chris Wyatt calls his site “Jesus 2.0″.

As paidContent notes, video startups like Metacafe and Veoh consume huge amounts of expensive bandwidth and so must raise large amounts of money. Nevertheless, it called GLG’s investment “ungodly big.”

Photo: GodTube.com

This is what the morning after looks like for Yahoo: a stock down 20 percent in pre-trading, and investors wondering whether Jerry Yang has a Plan B in his back pocket after Microsoft walked away from one of the strangest pseudo-hostile takeover bids in recent memory. One option is obvious: “It’s time to get a move on with Google,” said Jeffrey Lindsay, analyst with Sanford C. Bernstein. “Let’s hope they weren’t bluffing.”

Deutsche Telekom is looking at a possible purchase of No. 3 U.S. wireless company Sprint Nextel, Der Spiegel magazine reported on Saturday, and is considering options including a merger or an outright takeover. Deutsche Telekom’s T-Mobile USA is the fourth-biggest operator; a combination with Sprint would catapult T-Mobile to the number one spot, although Sprint and T-Mobile use incompatible wireless networks.

Warren Buffett said on Sunday that Berkshire Hathaway may be close to buying a medium-sized British company and will look at Royal Bank of Scotland’s insurance unit, Britain’s second-largest general insurer, valued at up to 8 billion pounds ($15.8 billion).

More Deals:

** Malaysia’s top lender, Malayan Banking, has bought a 15 percent stake in Pakistan’s largest listed lender MCB Bank for $680 million, betting on a bright economic future despite its recent political turbulence.

** Kuwait’s Burgan Bank plans to buy 194 million dinars ($727.7 million) in assets from Bahraini lender United Gulf Bank, the two companies said in a statement.

** U.S. property company Colony Capital and French investment group Eurazeo said they planned to raise their stake in hotels and services group Accor to around 30 percent.

** Israel’s Bank Leumi said it agreed to sell 15 percent of cable operator HOT to Internet service provider Netvision for 480 million shekels ($139 million).

** The European Commission said it had suspended its review of plans by Austrian oil and gas group OMV to take over Hungarian peer MOL.

** British market research firm Taylor Nelson Sofres has rejected an unsolicited proposal from advertising group WPP to buy it for 950 million pounds ($1.87 billion), it said on its website.

EBay’s lawsuit against Craigslist alleges that founder Craig Newmark and CEO Jim Buckmaster tried to dilute eBay’s 28.4 percent stake in the company after a marriage proposal. According to court papers unsealed Wednesday, Craigslist wanted out of the relationship since eBay had launched a competing product, Kijiji, but Meg Whitman countered with a bid to buy the entire company, leading to the allegedly “clandestine” meetings between Newmark and CEO Jim Buckmaster. At stake is the world’s third most valuable Web startup, as ranked by Silicon Alley Insider, valued at approximately $5 billion.

Microsoft’s board met on Wednesday to discuss its stand-off with Yahoo, but don’t get too excited: they failed to reach a decision on what to do next, according to a Wall Street Journal report. The board is still weighing whether to adopt a hostile approach and nominate a proxy slate of directors to replace Yahoo’s board, sweeten its cash-and-stock offer for Yahoo, or possibly walk away from the deal. A Microsoft-imposed “deadline” passed last Saturday.

Three-headed canine guardian of the gates of Hell, meet controversial private security contractor Blackwater. Cerberus Capital Management is in talks to invest $200 million for a stake in Blackwater USA, ABC News reported on Wednesday, citing sources. Or, not. The Wall Street Journal confirmed that Blackwater is seeking outside investment, but quotes a Cerberus spokesman as saying the private equity firm took a look but decided to pass. As the WSJ’s Deal Journal notes, the “secretive, billionaire, former paratrooper [Cerberus’ Steve Feinberg] trains his largesse on a secretive, lucrative quasi-military operations company” story was just too good to be true.

** British software company Micro Focus International Plc said it was to buy U.S. peer NetManage Inc for an agreed $73.3 million, or $7.20 per share.

** Britain’s Hornby Plc has agreed to buy model car maker Corgi for 8.3 million pounds ($16.5 million) to add to its stable of iconic toy brands, which include Scalextric racing cars, Airfix model planes and its eponymous train sets.

** Turkey’s leading mobile phone operator Turkcell is in talks to buy 80 percent of Belarussian Telecommunication Network (Best), a Turkcell official told Reuters.

** Japanese staffing service firm United Technology Holdings Co Ltd said it had abandoned plans for a capital and business tie-up with bigger rival Goodwill Group Inc.

Every day we hit the refresh button, full of hope that billionaire investor Carl Icahn’s blog will finally arrive despite long odds and uncooperative lawyers. Looks like we’re almost there.

Icahn told Reuters on Wednesday that The Icahn Report is finally going live — “in a week or two” — with its founder’s famously strong opinions about corporate governance and the individual companies that fail to live up to his standards.

“I think the time has finally come when people are starting to focus on the many abuses in a number of companies in corporate America and the damage they do,” the 71-year-old financier and hedge fund operator said.

The blog will arrive in the wake of Icahn’s successful, highly publicized demands for change in companies including Motorola Inc and Time Warner Inc , both of which ultimately gave in to his demands that they change leadership and spin off major divisions. He also was instrumental in clearing roadblocks in Oracle Corp’s $8.5 billion bid to acquire BEA Systems.

Not all of Icahn’s investments work out, however, notably real estate developer WCI Communities Inc , whose shares have collapsed over the past year as the high-end condominium market dried up. Icahn is WCI’s largest shareholder, with 4.8 million shares, according to regulatory filings.

Icahn, whose net worth is estimated at $14.5 billion by Forbes, dismissed the lackluster performance in some stock plays, saying investors need to be patient.

He pointed out that he bought the Stratosphere Casino and other Las Vegas properties a decade ago for around $300 million. Last week, he closed on a deal to sell them to real estate funds managed by Goldman Sachs for $1.3 billion, a $1 billion gain.

(Reporting by Dane Hamilton)

The other shoe — or is it an ax — is finally dropping for staff at Bear Stearns, with letters going out this week telling them whether they’ll keep their jobs when JPMorgan’s acquisition is complete.

One Bear employee who works in the emerging markets business in London has received confirmation he will be laid off, he told Reuters on Wednesday. Another in the same department said he was expecting to hear later in the day that he would be retained.

“Some individuals and some businesses are beginning to hear what their status is,” added a source close to the bank.

A third London-based staffer who does not work on a trading desk, but on the business side said: “I’m waiting for my letter from JPMorgan to see about a job offer. I’ve been told verbally there is a job for me, which is a great relief.”

The total number of layoffs is not yet known, but more than half of Bear Stearns employees are expected to lose their jobs. JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon has declined approximately one thousand times to give details.

Not that it will come as much consolation to axed Bear Stearns employees, but executives including co-head of fixed-income Jeffrey Mayer, co-heads of equities Steven Meyer and Bruce Lisman, and former CEO Ace Greenberg are known to have survived the purge. CEO Alan Schwartz, CFO Sam Molinaro, controller Jeffrey Farber and general counsel Michael Solender may also eventually accept employment with the bank, according to a U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission filing.

The New York Times reported over the weekend that Ace Greenberg, who started as a Bear Stearns clerk in 1949, is gifting $360,000 to 25 longtime mailroom and clerical employees — $200 a month over six years. Greenberg “has sold over $30 million in Bear stock since early 2007,” the Times reported.

Photo: A man holds a battle ax during three-day Highland Games Festival in Fehraltdorf near Zurich, REUTERS/Stefan Wermuth