Yahoo has struck an advertising partnership deal with WPP Group that will let WPP units GroupM and 24/7 Real Media buy ads on Yahoo’s online ad exchange. Yahoo said the deal would first involve WPP units GroupM and 24/7 Real Media. It may be a stretch to expect this shake off the dogs of war unleashed by Carl Icahn, who is trying to unseat the Yahoo board for its failure to deal with a $47.5 billion unsolicited takeover bid from Microsoft. If the ad tie-up deal with Google that’s still in the trial phase hasn’t done so, why would a deal with WPP? But at the same time, Yahoo CEO Jerry Yang can hardly be seen to be sitting on his hands.

Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway has pulled out of the bidding in Royal Bank of Scotland’s 7 billion pound ($13.62 billion) auction of its UK insurance business, according to the Financial Times. Berkshire told the FT it had looked at the business, which includes the insurers, Direct Line and Churchill, but had decided not to bid, without giving a reason.

Japan’s Bridgestone said it was forming a strategic alliance with rival Toyo Tire & Rubber aimed at coping with high materials prices and intensifying competition. The two companies plan to team up in developing advanced tire technology and procuring raw materials. They will also use each other’s production facilities and said they would take stakes in each other worth 8 billion yen ($76 million).

Other deals of the day…

* Finnish shareholders holding together more than 10 percent of TietoEnator said they would not accept the 1.08 billion euro ($1.67 billion) offer for the firm from Sweden’s Nordic Capital.

* Nuclear power company British Energy has received three bid approaches, a source familiar with the matter told Reuters. The potential bidders are French utility EDF, France’s Suez and a combined proposal from Germany’s RWE and Spain’s Iberdrola, the source said.

* Norway’s biggest media group, Schibsted ASA, said it had acquired all shares in Belgian online classified site Kapaza.be for 20.25 million euros ($31.34 million).

* Thai Beverage PCL, the country’s largest brewer and distiller, plans to take over Thai green tea and sushi maker Oishi Group for 6.94 billion baht ($214 million). Thai Beverage — the maker of market leaders Beer Chang and Mekhong whisky — has agreed to buy a 43.9 percent stake in Oishi from Yodkit Thurakij Co, for 3.045 billion baht ($94 million), Oishi said in a statement.

* Swedish-Canadian mining and exploration firm Lundin Mining has sold its 90 percent stake in the Norrliden project to Canada’s Gold-Ore Resources, IGE Nordic AB said.

Photo: “Follow Carl,” from the Good Dog, Carl series of Classic Board Books published by Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1989

Billionaire investor Carl Icahn is moving ahead with plans to run a dissident board slate at Yahoo in a bid to force the Internet company to sell itself to Microsoft. Icahn, who has amassed a 3.5 percent stake in Yahoo, has lined up at least 12 potential board candidates ahead of Thursday’s deadline for the July 3 annual meeting, which is shaping up to be a doozy. DealJournal maps out Icahn’s attack patterns, and Eric Jackson, who was instrumental in a successful campaign for a change of leadership at Yahoo last year, writes on Reuters.com that he is arguing again for an “against” vote for all directors.

General Electric is looking to sell its appliance unit in an auction that could bring in $5 billion to $8 billion, according to The Wall Street Journal, which says the company has hired Goldman Sachs to advise on a possible sale. While GE’s appliance unit, which makes refrigerators, stoves and other so-called “white goods,” is one of its most visible to consumers, the business made up just 4 percent of the company’s $173 billion in revenue last year. GE chief Jeffrey Immelt has worked to shed slower-growth businesses including the company’s plastics unit, where Immelt spent the early part of his career.

Comcast has agreed to acquire Web start-up Plaxo, which was first to seek to turn address books into social networks and laid the foundation for Friendster and Facebook. A source close to the deal said Comcast, the top U.S. cable TV company and No. 2 broadband Internet supplier, is paying from $145 million to $175 million, depending on whether the unit meets performance targets in the next few years. Plaxo joins Comcast online assets Comcast.net, video entertainment site Fancast, movie site Fandango and video publishing company thePlatform.

Search site Ask.com is expected to announce a deal today to buy Lexico, home to popular reference Web sites Dictionary.com and Thesaurus.com, a move that will expand its audience by 11 percent. IAC/InterActiveCorp is focusing its Internet and advertising assets and is spinning off its other businesses later this year. With Lexico, Ask expects to expand its audience to more than 145 million unique monthly users. Based on March traffic data from comScore, that would make Ask.com the ninth-largest Web property globally.

Other deals of the day:

* Anglo-Swiss miner Xstrata bid $398 million for Australian-listed Indophil Resources NL in a move that would give it full control of a giant copper mine in the Philippines. Indophil rejected the A$426 million, or $1 a share, offer as “opportunistic”, saying it did not reflect the value of the company.

* Aluminum Corp of China, the world’s No.4 aluminium maker, said that it had taken over six units of its state-owned parent worth 4.17 billion yuan ($595.5 million).

* Malaysian industrial and financial group Boustead Holdings said it will take over its property subsidiary, Boustead Properties at 5.50 ringgit ($1.69) per share.

* G4S Plc announced divestment of manned security and monitoring activities in Germany to Securitas Deutschland Finanz Holding Gmbh, a subsidiary of Securitas AB for a cash consideration of 27 million pounds.

* British energy network National Grid is interested in a possible bid for the high-voltage grid put up for sale by German utility E.ON, Chief Executive Steve Holliday said.

* The largest investor of Polish jeweller W.Kruk is in talk with financial investors to block the hostile bid by clothing retailer Vistula & Wolczanka, he said. Vistula & Wolczanka offered 289 million zlotys ($132.2 million) for two-thirds of W.Kruk earlier this month.

Just when it looked as if Yahoo chief Jerry Yang might keep his house in order, billionaire investor Carl Icahn looks set to crash the joint. A source close to the matter said the veteran corporate raider has built up a stake in Yahoo in the last week and plans to run a slate of proxy directors in an effort to force the company back to the negotiating table with Microsoft. It is unlikely that Icahn will join with other hedge funds in the campaign, the source added.

Singapore Airlines has invited offers for its 49 percent stake in Richard Branson’s Virgin Atlantic. The world’s second-biggest airline by market value bought the stake from the British billionaire in 1999 for 800 million pounds ($1.6 billion). “It’s not a secret that we regard it as an underperforming investment. We are still reviewing our plans and are open to all reasonable offers,” Singapore Airlines Chief Executive Chew Choon Seng said. “But as they say in classified ads: No timewasters, please.”

The protracted dispute over the leveraged buyout of U.S. radio operator Clear Channel Communications ended late yesterday as the parties reached agreement to settle the litigation and struck a new deal at a lower price of $17.9 billion. It brings to an end court battles between the private equity buyers, Clear Channel, and the banks which agreed to finance the deal when lending was more lucrative. The new deal will see Thomas H. Lee Partners and Bain Capital pay $36 a share to buy the radio operator, as opposed to the $39.20 they agreed at the peak of the private equity boom last year.

U.S. drugmaker Pfizer is exploring acquisition possibilities in the German biotech sector and has held talks with the management of Munich-based MediGene, two industry sources said. MediGene shares rose 13 percent to 6.3 euros after the news, valuing the group — which specialises in cancer treatment — at around 210 million euros ($325 million). For Pfizer, the world’s biggest drugs company, MediGene would be an easily digested acquisition and the New York-based company has a past history of buying up smaller companies with promising products or technologies. Pfizer Chief Financial Officer Frank D’Amelio said Pfizer’s recent focus was on smaller transactions, and he did not feel obliged to buy mid-size drugmakers, in the $10 billion to $15 billion price range, as some analysts have urged.

TomTom, the world’s biggest maker of car navigation devices, won unconditional permission from the European Commission to buy its main map supplier, Tele Atlas, for 2.9 billion euros ($4.5 billion). U.S. authorities cleared the deal last year.

Tesco, Britain’s biggest retailer, is buying 36 discount stores from South Korea’s E-Land for $1.9 billion — its biggest single acquisition to date. Tesco, like global rivals Wal-Mart and Carrefour, is seeking to expand in fast-growing international markets to offset slowing growth at home. South Korea is Tesco’s second most profitable market after Britain.

Other deals of the day:

* SK Telecom, South Korea’s top mobile operator, said it was holding preliminary discussions with Virgin Mobile over SK’s U.S. mobile business Helio.

* Hunan Nonferrous Metals Corp, China’s top zinc producer, plans to pay up to $77 million for control of Abra Mining, an Australian lead, zinc, gold and silver mining firm in which it already has a 17.8 percent stake.

* Russia’s former electricity monopoly will sell the government’s 29 percent stake in power producer TGK-11 to engineering firm E4 Group, sources close to the sale told Reuters.

Investor reaction to Hewlett-Packard’s bid for technology outsourcer Electronic Data Systems has been less exuberant than you might expect for a $12.6 billion tech deal these days. The $19 billion Compaq purchase in September 2002 came shortly after HP touched its life-time low share price under $10 per share. The stock then proceeded to double in value to over $20 by the end of the year. HP shares fell nearly 5 percent late yesterday as perceptions of EDS as a lumbering fixer-upper did not merit a premium of as much as around 40 percent. “Unless HP has some synergies where they can dramatically impact earnings growth of EDS, I’m not sure why they’d want to buy it,” said Jim Huguet, co-chief executive at Great Companies LLC. The party may still be coming, though, as the deal is seen sparking M&A in the IT services industry.

French bank Credit Agricole joined the growing list of lenders asking shareholders for billions of euros in extra cash while a trio of other European banks also revealed new scars from the credit crunch. Agricole, France’s biggest retail bank, announced a 5.9 billion euros ($9.1 billion) rights issue due to further writedowns at its Calyon investment banking arm of 1.2 billion euros during the first quarter. French rival Societe Generale, Belgian-Dutch group Fortis and Britain’s Alliance & Leicester also revealed combined writedowns of almost $3 billion as the impact of the U.S. housing market crisis and subsequent credit crunch spread further across Europe. After taking big hits, banks are asking shareholders to rebuild their capital cushion as the threat of further losses looms and banks’ ability to rebuild their balance sheet will be hampered by reduced earnings in coming years.

Westpac Banking launched a $17.6 billion all-share bid for smaller rival St George Bank in a tie-up that would create Australia’s biggest bank by market value. Analysts said the deal could trigger further consolidation in an Australian banking sector that, while dodging the worst of the subprime crisis, is still grappling with higher funding costs since the onset of the global credit crunch last year. Gail Kelly, Westpac’s chief executive who joined the bank less than four months ago after heading up St George for nearly six years, noted 2008 had brought a new world. “I left St George in August last year. That was a different time. Challenges in financial markets (are) very materially different now from then,” Kelly told journalists.

Finmeccanica of Italy has agreed to buy U.S. military contractor DRS Technologies in a $4 billion deal, the biggest so far in the European defense contractors’ bid for a slice of the growing U.S. weapons market. Finmeccanica said it would pay $81 a share in cash for DRS, a premium of about a third over the 30-day moving average of DRS’s stock price. Finmeccanica is 34 percent owned by the Italian state, and said it would pay for the purchase through a loan to be repaid through a capital increase, a bond issue and an asset sale. The cash price for DRS offers a premium of 32 percent over DRS’s 30-day average stock price. Finmeccanica plans to delist DRS, a maker of radar and surveillance equipment.

Corporate Express says it is willing to talk to U.S. office supplies retailer Staples after it raised its offer for the Dutch business products wholesaler. Staples raised its offer by more than 10 percent to about 1.46 billion euros ($2.3 billion), which Corporate Express has repeatedly rejected as too low. The Dutch firm said in a statement it was willing to talk to Staples about the revised offer and did not reiterate that Staples’ offer undervalued the company. Analysts said Staples may have to raise its bid again.

Other deals of the day:

* Emirates Telecommunications may compete with Mexican billionaire Carlos Slim and Russia’s Altimo for a $1 billion stake in India’s Tata Teleservices, al-Khaleej newspaper reported.

* Austrian vaccine maker Intercell bought Iomai Corp of the United States in a deal worth $189 million and also cut its first-quarter net loss.

* British credit information firm Experian said it had set up a 50-50 joint venture with Central Communication Bureau, a consumer credit bureau in Japan.

* Bank of Georgia, Georgia’s largest bank by assets, agreed to pay $34.2 million for a 70 percent stake in Belarusian Narodny Bank.

Brimming with confidence about prospects in the newspaper business, the Dolan empire of Cablevision and Madison Square Garden (home of the ever-entertaining New York Knicks, which CEO James Dolan is pictured showing a bit less confidence over in the photo to the left) has struck a deal to buy Long Island newspaper Newsday. Sam Zell accepted a raised $650 million bid for the paper after Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp dropped its $580 million offer.

Add radio broadcaster Cumulus Media to the pile of ditched deals. The $1.3 billion management buyout of the company ended after the investor group failed to agree on the transaction terms. The deal was announced in July last year. It called for Cumulus’ Chief Executive Lewis Dickey, other Dickey family members and an affiliate of Merrill Lynch Global Private Equity to buy Cumulus for $11.75 in cash per share, a 40 percent premium at the time. The investor group has agreed to pay Cumulus $15 million in termination fees.

International Lease Finance Corp, a unit of American International Group, is worried by the insurer’s financial troubles and mulling a split from it, according to the Wall Street Journal. Citing people familiar with the matter, the Journal said ILFC, a giant buyer of commercial aircraft that leases planes to air carriers, is worried that AIG’s financial issues could make it tougher for ILFC to compete in the airplane leasing industry. Last week, AIG posted a $7.8 billion quarterly loss after writing down assets linked to subprime mortgages.

Australia’s Westpac is bidding $14 billion to buy smaller rival St George Bank. The deal would create the country’s biggest bank by market value. The proposal by Westpac’s new Chief Executive Gail Kelly, who joined the bank less than four months ago after heading up St George for nearly six years, is seen possibly igniting a wave of consolidation in the country’s financial sector.

Other deals of the day:

* British-based electricity firm International Power has agreed to buy four U.S. power generation plants for $856.4 million to expand its presence in the country, it said.

* State-owned Philippine National Oil approved the sale of Saudi Aramco’s 40 percent stake in oil refiner Petron at a board meeting, officials said. Aramco has said it would sell the Petron stake to London-based investment fund Ashmore Group for $550 million.

* Singapore Telecommunications is actively involved in potential takeover talks between India’s top mobile firm, Bharti Airtel, and South African operator MTN Group, a source familiar with the situation told Reuters.

* Vodafone Group, the world’s largest mobile phone group by revenue, has no intention of pursuing a bid for South African company MTN, a spokesman said.

* India’s No. 2 mobile operator, Reliance Communications, may announce a network management joint venture with French-American telecoms equipment provider Alcatel-Lucent, a source familiar with the situation said.

* Khan Resources offered to buy Western Prospector in a move to consolidate operations and jointly develop uranium deposits in the Saddle Hills district of Mongolia.

* Britain’s largest care-home operator, Southern Cross Healthcare, is looking at buying Britain’s fifth-largest provider Craegmoor Healthcare, its CEO said.

* Britain’s Chloride Group, whose products protect against power shortages, said it had rejected a bid approach that it said materially undervalued the company.

Citigroup chief Vikram Pandit has sold off assets here and there in the months since taking over the top job, including stakes in CitiStreet, CitiCapital and Diners Club. But with sources saying some $400 billion of extraneous assets are going on the block, it’s fair to ask whether the head of the country’s biggest bank is being boldly aggressive or slamming the panic button.

“The only reason you’d sell off that many assets is you have a lot more losses coming than you originally thought,” said Jim Huguet, co-chief executive at fund manager Great Companies LLC, which does not own Citi shares. Since late last year, Citi has recorded more than $45 billion of writedowns and credit losses, raised more than $40 billion of new capital including $2 billion of preferred shares this week, and slashed its dividend 41 percent. The Financial Times, which first reported the story on Thursday, said the moves would take place over several years.

Global economic instability has created huge investment opportunities for China Investment Corp, but the sovereign wealth fund’s head said he will be careful not to destabilize countries where it operates. CIC paid $5 billion in December for a stake in U.S. investment bank Morgan Stanley but has otherwise kept its powder dry as Western financial institutions have sought to replenish capital depleted by big subprime credit losses. “The current international market turbulence has produced unprecedented investment opportunities,” said Lou Jiwei, head of the $200 billion sovereign wealth fund. “In the 1990s, some hedge funds exploited defects in the macroeconomic policies of some emerging economies and attacked them, which damaged their economies and caused hardship for people,” he said. “CIC will certainly never do a similar thing.”

Sovereign Bancorp, the second-largest U.S. savings and loan, plans to raise just over $1 billion in an equity offering to help it navigate a difficult economic environment, according to a person close to the transaction. The offering will be broadly distributed to institutional investors and will likely be conducted over the weekend. Sovereign is determining how much Banco Santander, which has a 24.99 percent stake in the thrift, might participate in the offering, while keeping any transaction with the Spanish bank at arms-length, the person said.

Google expects to launch new products for its YouTube Web video service in the next few months and sees reason for closer cooperation with Yahoo, Google Chief Executive Eric Schmidt said. Schmidt has said getting the video sharing site to make money is the Web search company’s top priority for the year. He did not give details of the products, however, and they are not even in beta testing. The Web search leader played a large role in the takeover battle between Microsoft and Yahoo. During a two-week test, it sold search advertisements on rival Yahoo last month as part of Yahoo’s attempt to find an alternative option to Microsoft’s offer. Schmidt said the trial run provided good reason for the companies to discuss cooperation, but there was no deal yet.

Other deals of the day:

* U.S. private equity firm The Carlyle Group will lead a 58.1 billion yen ($560 million) management buyout of an LCD glass venture jointly owned by Japan’s Hoya Corp and Nippon Sheet Glass, Hoya said.

* Norwegian aluminum group Norsk Hydro said it has agreed to buy privately owned Spanish aluminum building systems group Alumafel for 77 million euros ($118 million).

* Shares in British engineering software firm Flomerics Group surged after rejecting a buyout offer from larger U.S. rival Mentor Graphics, saying it would explore interest from several other parties.

* A local fund managed by U.S-based Lombard Investments plans to buy 10 percent of Asiasoft Corp, Thailand’s top online gaming firm, for up to $11.3 million, partly via an IPO this month, an IPO underwriter said.

* Australia’s Macquarie Group is interested in buying a key part of German power giant E.ON as it prowls for investment opportunities, one of its top managers said.

Countrywide bondholders may have not been holding out for much, but Bank of America may have nothing to offer. Bank of America said in a filing “there is no assurance that any of such (CFC’s) debt would be redeemed, assumed or guaranteed.” It said Countrywide had outstanding debt of about $97.23 billion as of Dec 31, including Federal Home Loan Bank advances of about $47.68 billion, which it expects will remain outstanding until repaid by Countrywide Bank. Bloomberg’s report suggests Countrywide would be split into good and bad companies, with the debt going into the junky one. Not that Countrywide bondholders should have much to say about it; Bank of America has no obligation to them, but just imagine the lawsuits.

Private equity firm Texas Pacific Group is considering a bid for Royal Bank of Scotland’s 8 billion pound ($15.9 billion) insurance arm, according to a source familiar with the matter. “TPG is doing its homework on the business now,” the source said. “It is very premature and no decision has yet been made to bid for it, but TPG is interested.” Britain’s second-biggest bank said last week it would also sell assets to generate 4 billion pounds in core capital this year, mostly from the possible disposal of all or a stake in its insurance arm, which includes brands Direct Line and Churchill.

Dutch financial services group ING said it would buy CitiStreet, a retirement plan administrator, grabbing third place in the defined contribution business in the United States. ING said in a statement it would pay 578 million euros ($903 million) for the company, which is jointly owned by Citigroup and State Street. Lehman Brothers analyst Nick Holmes said at first glance the acquisition may make sense strategically, but it did not look cheap.

Other deals of the day:

* Norwegian Property said it had agreed to sell its Norgani Hotels chain for 11.2 billion Norwegian crowns ($2.21 billion) to an undisclosed group of buyers, lifting its shares by as much as 12.6 percent.

* British aero engineer Hampson Industries said it was to pay up to $314 million to make two U.S. acquisitions, to expand its presence in the carbon composite materials market in the United States.

* Hampson also said it was raising 65 million pounds ($129 million) via a placing and open offer to help fund the deals, which are inter-conditional, to buy Odyssey Industries Inc and Global Tooling Systems Inc.

* Indian utility Reliance Power said its unit had signed an agreement to acquire 100 percent in three coal mines in Indonesia for an undisclosed sum.

* U.S. private equity firms Bain Capital and Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co. are bidding for Singapore disk drive component maker Unisteel Technology in an auction that has also attracted other major buyout firms, sources close to the matter said.

* Austrian technology group Andritz said it had agreed with General Electric to buy certain assets of GE Energy’s Hydro business.

* Indian engineering and construction firm Jaiprakash Associates said it had won a bid to buy 45 percent of small-sized energy explorer Prize Petroleum for an disclosed sum. The stake in the unlisted company was put on the block by ICICI Bank, India’s No. 2 lender, and its unit ICICI Venture Funds.

* Linde AG, the world’s largest industrial gases producer, said it sold Colombian unit Cryogas to Indura for enterprise value of 90 million euros.

* Nordea Bank bought a 15.2 percent stake in Oslo-listed Scorpion Offshore on April 30, Scorpion said.

* Back-office firm Firstsource Solutions said its board had decided not to merge its subsidiary, RevIT Systems Pvt Ltd with itself.

Clear Channel Communications says a Texas court has dismissed a request by a group of banks to delay a trial over the funding of the $20 billion buyout of the radio station operator. The banks asked to delay the June 2 trial until January, 2009, saying they needed more time to prepare, according to court documents obtained by Reuters. “Hopefully the banks are running out of delay tactics, and they will soon face a Texas jury who will make them take responsibility for their actions,” Clear Channel said in a statement. What could this defense be that requires another seven months to refine? Perhaps their lawyers are looking to twist the infamous Material Adverse Clause to protect lenders, not just borrowers.

Italian prime minister-elect Silvio Berlusconi threatened to re-nationalize Alitalia if the European Commission continued to “whine” about a government loan to keep the ailing airline afloat. With an overwhelming victory in national and city elections in his pocket, Berlusconi has attacked the European Commission for doubting whether the $467 million loan met European rules barring further state aid to the airline. The tycoon said a bid by a group of Italian businessmen remained the first choice for salvaging the carrier, but that EU trouble could prompt the state or its railways to buy the 50.1 percent of Alitalia that it does not already own.

Midwest Corp recommended a revised A$1.36 billion ($1.27 billion) offer from China’s Sinosteel, ending resource-hungry China’s first hostile foray into Australia’s mining sector. The A$6.38 per share offer falls short of the A$7 price target set by Midwest’s chief executive Bryan Oliver, but is still a 13.9 percent boost to Sinosteel’s previous offer. Midwest was last quoted at A$6.10 before trading in its shares was halted early on Tuesday. Sinosteel already owns 19.9 percent of Midwest. Meanwhile, Chinese Iron and Steel Group plans to lift its stake in Australian prospector Apollo Minerals to 19.9 percent, Apollo said.

Other deals of the day:

* British market research firm Taylor Nelson Sofres is in talks with Germany’s GfK over a nil-premium merger which would create the world’s second-largest market information group by revenue.

* Taiwan contract notebook PC maker Wistron said it will buy Lite-On Technology’s monitor business for T$9.2 billion ($300 million) in cash.

* Oilfield services group Seadrill has raised its sake in rig group Scorpion Offshore to 36.0 percent and said it would launch an offer for the rest of the stock within four weeks.

* The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development plans to invest up to $94 million into a Kazakh state-controlled private equity fund, the bank said.

What is it Kirk Kerkorian (left) sees in the struggling auto sector? The crafty, 90-year-old investor earned a big chunk of his street cred in Las Vegas, wheeling and dealing in entertainment (he doubled-down on movie studio MGM), a hotel and an air service to the gambling haven. In the auto sector, he has taken big bets, lost some, and won some.

On Monday, Kerkorian signaled his intention to drive his interest in Ford Motor up to 5.6 percent, triggering a disclosure requirement. He began amassing Ford shares April 2. Tracinda holds 100 million Ford shares and announced on Monday that it planned a cash tender offer to acquire 20 million more, or about 1 percent of the stock, at $8.50 per share, or a 13.3 percent premium over Friday’s close. Ford lost $2.7 billion in 2007 and $12.6 billion in 2006. It has forecast a return to profitability in 2009 after slashing costs in the U.S. market by cutting jobs and closing plants.

Kerkorian sold off the remnants of his stake in GM in December 2006, netting about $1.68 billion - down from the $1.69 billion he had invested in the automaker. At the time Kerkorian sold off his stake in GM, the move was greeted by relief by investors since it removed the threat of a potentially distracting proxy fight for control of GM’s board.

A decade ago, when Daimler-Benz bought Chrysler for nearly $40 billion, Kerkorian tripled his investment in the U.S. carmaker, and still fought for a billion dollars he thought Daimler had short-changed Chrysler on. When the German automaker sold the money-losing U.S. unit last year, Kerkorian’s Tracinda Corp investment arm was in the front row of bidders, offering to buy all of DaimlerChrysler for $4.5 billion, just $500 million less than he netted in 1998, when the Daimler-Chrysler deal was inked.

The tender for 20 million Ford shares at 8.50 a share came at a great time for Ford - well, anytime would have been good - sending the stock up to year highs and beyond. The stock is up more than 60 percent since hitting a March 17 low of $4.95 a share. If the wheels stay on, perhaps this time he’ll hit the jackpot.

The common wisdom that the real money in air travel is in business class didn’t hold up for Eos. The airline of exclusively business class flights from New York to London said over the weekend it had filed for bankruptcy, becoming the latest failed approach to making the airline business profitable.

At the bargain-flight end of the spectrum as many as a half-dozen smaller airlines have collapsed under the weight of sky-rocketing fuel costs. ATA Airlines went chapter 11 earlier this month and holiday island hopper Aloha Airlines collapsed in March.

If Eos emerges from bankruptcy, perhaps it should consider a new slogan.