If you are a giant Swiss bank, the one business you are supposed to do better than just about anyone is private banking. So news that UBS is considering selling Paine Webber, the heart of its U.S. wealth management business, which it bought for $10 billion nearly eight years ago, hasn’t gone down well at all. The stock sank more than 4 percent on the news. Though the name of Paine Webber disappeared from Wall St, the operations have remained more-or-less intact, making it relatively easy to hive off, analysts say. Senior bankers say the business could be an attractive buy for Bank of America or Morgan Stanley.

France Telecom has pulled its long-odds, $40 billion bid for TeliaSonera. The French suitor was restricted by its financial targets and Sweden, a big TeliaSonera shareholder, would have held out for a better price. TeliaSonera shares dropped 13 percent to 43.30 Swedish crowns, while France Telecom shares jumped 7.3 percent. The two companies held talks but TeliaSonera said the terms did not improve significantly and France Telecom said the deal-breaker was money.

Deutsche Bank launched its first special purpose acquisition company focused on Germany, Switzerland and Austria, a venture led by three high-profile executives. Germany1 Acquisition will be headed by co-Chairmen Thomas Middelhoff, chief executive of retailer Arcandor, and Roland Berger, founder of the strategy consultancy bearing his name. Florian Lahnstein, a former investment banker at Bear Stearns and UBS, is chief executive. Germany1 aims to raise 275 million euros ($432.9 million) in an offering of shares and warrants, said Deutsche Bank, which is the sole IPO bookrunner.

Other deals of the day:

* Global steel giants ArcelorMittal and POSCO have separately bought stakes in Macarthur Coal, potentially blocking each other from taking over the Australian mining company as steelmakers rush to secure stable coal supplies.

* New Zealand rural services firm PGG Wrightson said it would pay NZ$220 million ($167 million) for a 50 percent stake in meat producer Silver Fern Farms, sending its shares lower.

* Tele2 said it was selling its Polish operation to Polish phone group Netia for 300 million Swedish crowns ($50 million).

* Irish oil and gas explorer Petroceltic said that Spanish power company Iberdrola had agreed to buy a 22.64 percent stake in it for $55 million.

* New Zealand retail investment company Hellaby Holdings said it would sell its poorly-performing BBQ factory business and forecast a fall in operating earnings. The company said it would sell the business to Auckland-based private equity firm Capital Group. No price was disclosed.

* China State Shipbuilding Corp, the country’s largest ship-building group, has put its Wenchong Shipyard up for sale on the Beijing Equity Exchange for 3.04 billion yuan ($443 million), according to the exchange’s website (http://www.cbex.com.cn/).

* Del Monte Foods agreed to sell its seafood business including tuna brand StarKist to South Korean food group Dongwon for $363 million, creating the world’s top canned tuna firm.

* New Zealand dairy cooperative Fonterra and National Foods are working together on a possible joint bid for Australia’s Dairy Farmers, the dairy producer said.

* Bear Stearns Asset Management will sell its 50 percent stake in Migdal Capital Markets to a subsidiary of Migdal Insurance & Financial Holdings for $70 million, the Israeli insurer said.

* Commercial International Bank, Egypt’s largest publicly traded lender by value, said it had agreed to buy the remaining 49.9 percent of its investment banking subsidiary CI Capital. It already owns 50.1 percent.

* Indian discount food and grocery retailer Subhiksha is acquiring a majority stake in Chennai-based Blue Green Constructions and Investments, and expects to merge the two firms and list the combined entity shortly.

Once upon a time, bank analysts were uniformly upbeat on investment banks. “Sell” ratings were nearly unheard of, and potholes in balance sheets were never as big as the huge, routine earnings beats. Now, with Goldman Sachs’s sector u-turn perhaps at the apex, there is plenty of mud to go around. Today’s hit list includes Barclays, the recipient of 4.5 billion pounds in balance-sheet aid this week. Citigroup says Britain’s third-biggest bank may need to raise a further 9 billion pounds and could take more significant write-downs. Lehman Brothers analyst Roger Freeman took aim at Merrill Lynch, saying the big broker will probably see $5.4 billion of write-downs in the second quarter, mainly from its exposure to monolines. Freeman raised his write-down view by $3 billion for Merrill, making his estimate the highest among Wall Street analysts.

Merger activity in the United States dropped 29 percent in the second quarter, faring better than the 40 percent global slump, as corporations filled the void left by buyout firms and targeted big consumer brands such as Anheuser-Busch and Wrigley. “Strategic buyers see an opportunity here due to the absence of the financial buyers. For the last 24 months, prior to the downturn, strategic buyers were getting outbid by financial buyers. That’s not happening now,” said Bob Filek, a partner with PricewaterhouseCoopers’ transaction services. During the first half of the year, private equity deal volume dropped 85 percent in the U.S. and 76 percent globally, according to Thomson Reuters data.

A couple more European banks have increased their China exposure. Deutsche Bank signed a deal with Shanxi Securities to set up an investment banking venture, a source with knowledge of the deal said on Friday. Deutsche planned to take 33 percent of the envisioned Beijing venture, the most allowed. Beijing this year re-opened its coveted but shuttered securities industry to foreign firms after a hiatus of more than a year to let local players merge and strengthen. Several banks, including BNP Paribas, have since expressed an interest in setting up local ventures. Chinese stock markets have shed nearly half their value this year, but foreign banks remain keen on securing a foothold there with an eye on the longer term. Royal Bank of Scotland has won approval from Chinese regulators to buy a nearly 20 percent stake in Suzhou Trust as it expands in corporate banking and wealth management services in China, sources with direct knowledge of the situation said. Suzhou Trust is a mid-sized trust and investment firm.

Other deals of the day:

* French insurer Groupama said it had bought Turkish insurers Guven Sigorta and Guven Hayat for 350 million lira ($287 million) from the TTKMB association of agricultural credit cooperatives.

* Telstra, Australia’s largest telephone firm, expects strong revenue and profit growth at its newly acquired Chinese online advertising websites.

* Mexico’s KOF, the world’s second-largest bottler of Coca-Cola drinks, said it acquired Brazilian soda maker and brewer Refrigerantes Minas Gerais Ltda for $364.1 million.

* New Zealand dairy cooperative Fonterra and National Foods have had talks about a possible joint bid for Australia’s Dairy Farmers, which is valued at up to A$1 billion ($961.5 million), a source familiar with the situation said.

* Russian mid-sized bank InvestTorgBank said its Russian owners had sold just under 40 percent of the bank in two stakes for a total of 5 billion roubles ($213 million).

* Australian-listed miner Herald Resources advised its shareholders to decide themselves on which of two rival takeover bids to accept.

Investors buying freshly diluted equity has become something of a refrain in Europe. Barclays raised 4.5 billion pounds ($8.8 billion) from investors including Qatar and Japan’s Sumitomo Mitsui to rebuild capital and pursue growth. That drove the London bank’s shares up more than 5 percent. Existing shareholders will get a chance to buy up to 4 billion pounds of shares at a discount, with outside “anchor” investors underwriting the fundraising. The fact that the capital raising was well-flagged and successfully completed was enough to encourage buyers.

Also rising 5 percent were shares of UBS, as the New York Post reported the Swiss banking giant has hired Lazard to conduct a strategic review, lending a touch more credence to the talk that the bank is looking to split its wealth management and investment banking businesses. UBS’s share could also be reacting to the Barclays news, which shows that sovereign wealth funds haven’t gone into hiding.

Qatar, which on Tuesday agreed to sell 25 percent of its stock market to NYSE Euronext, is in talks with London and German stock exchanges about new partnerships, according to Al Arabiya Television. Qatar, the world’s biggest exporter of liquefied natural gas, agreed to sell a stake in the Doha Securities Market for $250 million in a bid to become the booming region’s financial hub. “Qatar is in talks with the London Stock Exchange and the bourse in Germany to build new strategic partnerships,” Al Arabiya Television reported, citing Hussein al-Abdullah, executive board member for the $60 billion Qatar Investment Authority.

Other deals of the day:

* Dalian Port plans to buy an 18.9 percent stake in Jinzhou Port for about 1.91 billion yuan ($278 million) to become its second-biggest shareholder and a strategic partner, Jinzhou Port said.

* Chinese steel mills are seeking to buy an equity stake in Australian iron ore prospector Brockman Resources, Managing Director Wayne Richards said, adding that his firm was open to an approach.

* Idea Cellular, India’s fifth-largest mobile operator, said it would buy Spice Group’s 40.8 percent stake in another mobile firm, Spice Communications, at 77.3 rupees per share.

* Sweden’s Assa Abloy said it had bought Rockwood Manufacturing, a maker of door hardware in the United States, for an undisclosed sum.

* China’s Changsha Zoomlion Industry Science and Technology Development said it had won a joint bid with Goldman Sachs and two other investors to buy Italy’s Compagnia Italiana Forme Acciaio SpA, or Cifa, for 271 million euros ($421.9 million).

* Progress Software Corp said it will buy IONA Technologies PLC , a software integration technology company, for $106 million.

* Southeast Asia’s largest property developer CapitaLand said it had paid S$250 million ($183 million) for 62 percent of a retail mall in Malaysia.

Fresh from having Yahoo slip through its fingers, Microsoft’s plan to leapfrog into Consumerville takes another hit with news that Nokia is paying 264 million euros ($410 million) to buy out other shareholders of Symbian, the dominant player in smartphone software. Nokia says it will dissolve royalty payments for the platform, making it more attractive when compared to Google’s rival free platform, Android. Symbian’s operating systemis already used in two-thirds of smartphones; Nokia makes 40 percent of all phones sold globally. “This puts a lot of pressure on Microsoft right at a time when they are trying to really push into the consumer space,” said Gartner analyst Carolina Milanesi. “For operators this offers a good alternative to Android.”

British gas producer BG Group launched a hostile $13.1 billion bid for Australia’s Origin Energy, as it seeks to boost its position in Asia-Pacific’s fast-growing gas market. BG is taking its A$13.8 billion all-cash bid, valuing Origin at A$15.50 a share, direct to shareholders after Origin’s board rejected it last month. Origin claimed then that its coal seam gas reserves alone were worth over $15 billion. Shares in Origin, which have surged over 85 percent this year, rose 6.2 percent to a record A$16.48 before closing up 5.8 percent at A$16.42, indicating investors expect an even higher offer. If successful, the deal would be the second-largest foreign takeover of an Australian company after Cemex, North America’s largest cement producer, bought Rinker Group last year for $14.2 billion.

Russian oil major Lukoil bought a 49 percent stake in Italian refiner ERG SpA’s Mediterranean plant for 1.35 billion euros ($2.1 billion), in a sign of the growing energy ties between Russia and Italy. Lukoil and ERG, Italy’s second-biggest refiner by market share, agreed a joint venture valued at 2.75 billion euros to control ERG’s Isab di Priolo refinery on Sicily. ERG will have 51 percent of the new company.

Other deals of the day:

* UBS said it had acquired Dutch wealth manager VermogensGroep.

* French aero engine and telecoms maker Safran said it had bought Dutch-based passport and secure ID document maker Sdu-Identifaction.

* Shares in China Oilfield Services, an arm of the CNOOC, jumped more than 3 percent as speculation grew about a potential takeover of Norwegian offshore driller Awilco Offshore.

* South Korean food group Dongwon said it will buy canned tuna company StarKist from Del Monte Foods for about $300 million, in the latest push by South Korean food makers for global expansion.

* Australian zinc and lead miner Perilya rejected as inadequate a takeover proposal from CBH Resources, both companies said, but Perilya left the door open to further talks.

* Flowers Foods, which produces baked goods, said it agreed to acquire Holsum Bakery in a cash and stock deal.

* Italy’s Banca Popolare dell’Emilia Romagna will launch a buyout offer for the 71.8 percent of its Meliorbanca unit it does not already own at 3.2 euros per share, BPER said.

* Hospital operator Tenet Healthcare said it will sell its interest in health care services company Broadlane Inc to TowerBrook Capital Partners for proceeds of about $155 million.

* Occidental Petroleum said it is buying a stake in a major Canadian oil sands project for C$500 million ($492 million), giving it a foothold in one of the world’s biggest developing oil plays as crude prices surge.

* Digimarc, a provider of secure identity technology, said it is spinning off its digital watermarking business as part of a deal with L-1 Identity Solutions, a photo and fingerprint identity equipment maker.

Republic Services and Allied Waste Industries are tying the bag. The $6.1 billion all-stock deal has been in the works for more than two years, and puts a serious competitor together for top trash company Waste Management by combining the second- and third-largest waste and environmental services companies. Allied Waste shareholders will receive what amounts to a 17 percent premium for their shares, and will end up with about 52 percent ownership of the combined company. Last week, analysts were talking about the potential for higher trash hauling industry prices in the wake of the merger; investors are worried about antitrust issues for the very same reason.

Singapore’s Neptune Orient Lines, the world’s eighth-biggest container shipping firm, is looking to raise $5-$7 billion in loans, according to banking sources, the clearest sign yet it will bid for Germany’s Hapag-Lloyd. The merger of the two companies could potentially create the world’s number-three container shipping group, behind Danish shipping group A.P. Moller-Maersk and privately owned Mediterranean Shipping. The talks come as German tourism group TUI Chief Executive Michael Frenzel tours Asia to market Hapag-Lloyd, TUI’s container shipping business, which analysts value at around $7 billion, including debt.

U.S. fertilizer producer and oilseed processor Bunge has agreed to buy Corn Products International for $4.4 billion in stock. The company also raised its 2008 earnings forecast range by more than $2 a share. The deal, which was first reported by The Wall Street Journal, unites two of the oldest U.S. agricultural businesses and puts Bunge squarely in the business of finished corn products such as starches and sweeteners. It also expands Bunge’s operations in growth markets and diversifies its sources of revenue with a “solid cash-flow business,” Chief Executive Alberto Weisser said in a statement.

Other deals of the day:

* Safran said it has submitted an unsolicited offer to buy the secure ID business of Digimarc for $300 million in cash.

* Norwegian papermaker Norske Skog is selling its South Korean unit for 5 billion Norwegian crowns ($965.8 million) to reduce debt.

* KPN said it had sold its Getronics units in U.S., Canada and Mexico to CompuCom for cash and shares.

* Hochschild Mining has increased its stake in Lake Shore Gold to 40 percent.

* Oce has acquired Intersoft, a French distributor of printers, scanners and print media in the wide format graphic arts segment.

* Metso would acquire GE’s plant in Lachine, near Montreal, which manufactures large mining equipment.

* Israeli defence electronics firm Elbit Systems said its subsidiary Electro-Optics Elop has bought intelligence gathering systems firm Bar-Kal for an amount not material to Elbit.

* Norwegian telecom group Telenor has agreed to buy communications company Datametrix from Norwegian technology firm Ignis ASA for 226 million crowns ($43.65 million)

* Shares in BankThai surged over 40 percent after Malaysia’s CIMB agreed to buy a large stake in the small Thai lender for 5.9 billion baht ($177 million) to widen its Southeast Asian banking presence.

* Australian-listed Indophil Resources, the target of competing takeover bids, has lifted its stake in the Tampakan copper and gold mine in the Philippines by 1.73 percent, the firm said.

Oprah, meet Howard. Reports in the Washington Post and The Wall Street Journal say the head of the FCC will support the merger of XM, home to Ms. Winfrey, and Sirius,  where Mr. Stern holds court, removing the last regulatory hurdle to the long-awaited merger of the country’s only two satellite radio operators. Aides to the FCC chief said he decided to give his support after the companies agreed last week to concessions intended to prevent the new company from raising prices or stifling competition among radio makers, the Post reported.  As of last week there was still some static coming from members of Congress, but with the FCC backing the deal it’s unclear how they will make themselves heard.

In his first public comment on the end of the Yahoo/Microsoft merger talks, billionare financier Carl Icahn, said on Sunday the subsequent deal Yahoo forged with Google “might have some merit.” He had previously said a Google deal should be considered a secondary alternative to the Microsoft offer. “While the Google deal is not the same as an offer of $34.375 per share for Yahoo, I am continuing to study it,” Icahn told Reuters. Icahn declined to comment on whether he would continue to press his proxy battle to replace the board of Yahoo.

Belgian brewer InBev warned U.S. rival Anheuser-Busch that it should fully explore its $46 billion takeover offer before doing a deal with Mexico’s Modelo. In a letter that appeared to be aimed at Anheuser-Busch shareholders, InBev suggested that doing a deal with Modelo could impact the value of its $65-a-share takeover offer. Inbev’s Chief Executive Carlos Brito wrote to Anheuser-Busch’s CEO August Busch IV that he was committed to a “friendly combination,” and “we would expect that prior to proceeding with any alternative transaction, especially if your shareholders will not be given the opportunity to vote on it, you would first fully explore our offer and the potential adverse consequences any such transaction could have on the ability of your shareholders to receive our premium offer.”

Other deals of the day:

* French market watchdog AMF has approved the merger document of Gaz de France and Suez, removing one of the last hurdles to the utilities’ long-delayed 100 billion euro ($153.3 billion) merger.

* Shareholders in Australian miner Zinifex approved a A$4.3 billion ($4.0 billion) takeover by fellow miner Oxiana, creating Australia’s third-largest diversified mining group. The new company said it would look at any assets BHP Billiton may need to sell to satisfy anti-trust regulators in its bid to acquire Rio Tinto

* Rio Tinto dismissed concerns that it could be barred from digging a huge iron ore mine in Africa, as it builds its defense against a $180 billion bid from bigger rival BHP Billiton.

* De La Rue, the world’s largest banknote printing company, has agreed to sell its Cash Systems business to private equity firm Carlyle Group for 360 million pounds ($700 million) in cash.

* Australian oil firm Roc Oil offered to buy Anzon Australia in a deal valuing Anzon at about A$612 million ($572 million), after agreeing to acquire UK-listed Anzon Energy.

* Swiss machine maker Schweiter Technologies said it is selling its Satisloh Holding unit to French eyeglass maker Essilor International for 340 million euros ($521.3 million) in cash, boosting its shares.

* ProSiebenSat.1 has agreed to sell its Scandinavian pay-TV group to Sweden’s TV4 in a deal with an enterprise value of 320 million euros ($492 million) that will help it cut debt, lifting its shares.

* Vodka label Stolichnaya is to be put up for sale after Russian company SPI asked Lehman Brothers to find a buyer, a source familiar with the matter told Reuters.

* Credit Suisse said that it has won approval from regulators to set up a securities joint venture in China, which will allow it to underwrite domestic stock and bond offerings in the country.

* Enmax Corp said that it extended the deadline for the takeover of junior natural gas producer Cordero Energy as the two sides agreed to sweeten the deal with a special dividend.

* Cogeco Cable plans to acquire all the shares of city-owned Toronto Hydro Telecom for C$200 million ($194 million), the cable company said.

* Chip equipment maker Applied Materials said it remained interested in buying some businesses of Dutch rival ASM International and wants to enter discussions on possible transactions.

* ArcelorMittal, the world’s largest steelmaker, bought a 11.31 percent stake in the Turkish steel company Erdemir, bringing its total ownership to 24.9 percent and sending Erdemir shares sharply higher.

* Swedish engineering group Sandvik agreed to buy a 49 percent of U.S. tool maker Precorp for an undisclosed sum.

* Gemini Communication said it has acquired 51 percent stake in Chennai’s Veeras Infotek in a deal valued at 70 million rupees.

* Shares in Banco Popular fell more than 3 percent after Mexican telecoms company Axtel denied reports that it or its chief executive could buy a stake in the Spanish bank.

* French catering and services company Sodexo said it had bought a 90 percent stake worth 23 million euros ($35.3 million) in Yachts de Paris, which operates cruises on the river Seine in Paris.

* The Philippines rebuffed an offer to sell its 40 percent stake in oil refiner Petron Corp to investment fund Ashmore Group for around $550 million, saying it wanted a higher price.

With Google looking like the big winner after doing an ad search deal with Yahoo, pretty much everyone else involved is looking like a loser. Microsoft will have to take its mammoth war chest and try to find another way to make a meaningful stab at the coveted online ad space — or concede the market altogether. Though Yahoo is waving enhanced revenue and cash flow figures around, the deal is seen as better for Google, which is the undisputed heavyweight champion in ad search and just gets a juicy space to show how mighty it is. “Google has made an enormous gain strategically. This move might well have shut Microsoft out of the online space altogether,” said Sanford Bernstein analyst Jeffrey Lindsay. Speculation is rising that the Yahoo/Google deal could provoke antitrust scrutiny, and Carl Icahn still has his troops massing to oust Jerry Yang and the Yahoo board. But if he had any clout to force Yahoo into a deal with Microsoft, it wasn’t on show yesterday. Did he lose cred, or does he plan to keep fighting? He may say soon, but probably not on his blog.

With signs that its wealthy clientele are growing nervous, UBS has wrapped up a 16 billion franc ($15.4 billion) rights issue. Flows into its wealth management business slowed to a trickle in the first three months of the year, and this is the Swiss bank’s second effort to resuscitate finances ravaged by the global markets crisis. Dieter Ewald, a fund manager at UBS shareholder Frankfurt Trust, said such concerns had prompted him recently to pare back his investment in the Swiss bank. “UBS is handicapped,” he said. “We are worried that wealth management will be hit. We want to see that the new management can bring it back on track, and then we would invest more again.”

Pfizer may bid for Ranbaxy Laboratories, countering a $4.6 billion offer by Japan’s Daiichi Sankyo for the Indian generic drug maker, the Business Standard newspaper said. Ranbaxy’s shares jumped nearly 5 percent on the report while Daiichi Sankyo’s shares dropped 2 percent. Daiichi Sankyo and Ranbaxy are seeking to become a pharmaceuticals powerhouse that sells both branded drugs and generics. The newspaper added Pfizer had held talks with the Ranbaxy founders for a possible acquisition a year earlier.

An infrastructure fund managed by Australia’s Babcock & Brown is to buy UK train leasing firm Angel Trains from Royal Bank of Scotland for 3.6 billion pounds ($7 billion) including debt. The deal came as shares in Babcock and Brown plunged for a second day on concerns about its debt and ability to raise funds but it will help Royal Bank of Scotland, Britain’s second-biggest bank, which is selling off non-core assets to further boost its balance sheet after raising 12 billion pounds ($23.5 billion) this week in the biggest ever rights issue.

Other deals of the day:

* Britain’s AEA Technology said it would buy U.S. company Project Performance Corp for $65 million and would raise 39.7 million pounds ($77.6 million) through a rights issue to help fund the deal.

* Struggling Finnish fine paper maker M-real Oyj cancelled a plan to divest its Reflex paper mill in Germany to Arjowiggins Group, citing to a condition set by the European Commission.

* India’s Jet Airways has decided to pull out of talks to buy a stake in low-cost carrier SpiceJet owing to differences over valuation, Business Standard newspaper said, citing sources from both airlines.

* A property investment arm of Morgan Stanley plans to sell at least two high-end serviced apartment projects in Shanghai, which are wholly owned by the Wall Street bank, for several billion yuan, people familiar with the situation said.

* South Korea’s National Pension Service, the world’s fifth-largest pension fund, will pump $173 million into a deal in which LS Cable has agreed to buy wire and cable maker Superior Essex.

Talk about a friendly bid. InBev CEO Carlos Brito gushes about Bud in this video statement, making a $46.3 billion bid sound almost cheap. “We respect the Anheuser-Busch board a lot,” he said. “We admire them a lot and we think that the business rationale is very strong. But Bud shares are still trading well below the $65 per share offer, so skepticism abounds. With analysts calling for a bid closer to $70, expect at least a few more rounds.

India’s Ranbaxy Laboratories sees huge opportunities for growth in Japan’s generics drug market and mergers and acquisitions are a likely option for it to expand. The attractiveness of the market was a big factor in its decision to team up with Daiichi Sankyo, Ranbaxy Chief Executive Malvinder Singh told a news conference in Tokyo. Faced with an ageing population and ballooning healthcare costs, Japan’s government has recently taken steps to promote the use of the off-patent drugs — currently only 17 percent of volume compared with 63 percent in the United States. Ranbaxy and Daiichi Sankyo announced on Wednesday that Japan’s No. 3 drug maker would pay up to $4.6 billion for control of the Indian generic drugs maker.

Citigroup Chief Executive Vikram Pandit must have seen this coming. The Wall Street Journal reports that the bank plans to close the hedge fund he co-founded, and which more-or-less launched his rocket ship to the top. Last month, Citi said it was looking at restructuring the fund, called Old Lane. Nearly all investors unaffiliated with the fund have requested to redeem their money. Citi bought Old Lane last year for more than $600 million, but the fund’s performance has since been disappointing. Citi wrote down $200 million of intangible assets linked to the acquisition in the first quarter.

Other deals of the day:

*BHP Billiton took its case for a takeover of rival Rio Tinto to well-heeled investors on Thursday, saying a marriage could better capture markets in fast-industrializing Asian economies.

*InBev courted shareholders of Anheuser-Busch after making a $46.3 billion bid, hoping to add Budweiser to its own Stella Artois and Beck’s beers and create the world’s largest brewer.

*Britain’s Chloride Group, which makes products to protect against power shortages, said it rebuffed a 696 million pounds ($1.37 billion) takeover bid last week as the offer undervalued the firm, and it is seeking acquisitions to grow in Asia.

*Spanish power company Iberdrola ruled out a bid for nuclear power operator British Energy, an Iberdrola spokeswoman said.

When at first you don’t succeed, raise, raise again. Another upped bid from Staples convinced Corporate Express management to back the unsolicited offer. The resweetened bid for the Dutch firm was 1.7 billion euros ($2.65 billion), or 9.25 euros per share, from the 9.15 euros it offered last week and a fair bit above the 7.25 euros it offered in February. Corporate Express’s defensive play for French competitor Lyreco has been scrapped (for a tidy 30 million euro breakup fee).

Oil major BP accused its Russian partners of staging a boardroom coup at their 50-50 Russian oil joint venture TNK-BP, as the two sides prepared to re-enter negotiations on the future of the company. The Wall Street Journal cites people close to the discussions as saying the talks have already broken down. BP and its Russian partners, a group of four billionaires united in the Alfa-Access-Renova consortium, have been locked in a long-running conflict over strategy and ownership at the company. Mounting pressure over recent months on the troubled oil firm, including tax probes, raids on offices and the arrest of an employee, have led analysts to speculate that a state-controlled energy giant will soon muscle in on TNK-BP.

Sovereign funds may not be thrilled with their investments in beleagured US banks, but they don’t seem too put off by the battered property market. The New York Post reports that the Abu Dhabi Investment Council is negotiating to buy a 75 percent stake in New York City’s landmark Chrysler Building for $800 million. The paper cited sources as saying the assets would be purchased from TMW, the German arm of an Atlanta-based investment fund. This follows last month’s deal in which a group led by Boston Properties is buying the GM Building and three others from Macklowe Properties for $3.45 billion. The Post said investors in that deal included the wealth funds of Kuwait and Qatar.

Other deals of the day:

* Japanese drug maker Daiichi Sankyo said it aims to buy a stake of more than 50.1 percent in India’s biggest generic drug maker Ranbaxy in a deal worth 147.4-198 billion rupees ($3.4-4.6 billion).

* SK Telecom, South Korea’s top mobile operator, denied market talk that it was seeking to buy local set-top box maker Humax.

* Norway’s government has bought 700,000 more shares in energy group StatoilHydro as part of its long-term plan to boost its stake to 67 percent from 62.5 percent, the company’s share registry showed.

* Software services firm 3i Infotech said it has acquired 51 percent in Mumbai-based software solutions firm Fineng Solutions, with an option to buy the balance later.

* Chinese state-owned financial conglomerate CITIC Group offered to buy its small Hong Kong-listed arm CITIC International Financial Holdings for $1.4 billion as part of an earlier-announced deal that would boost Spanish bank BBVA’s toehold in fast-growing Asia.

* Slovenia’s largest household appliances producer Gorenje said it had made its largest ever takeover, but gave no details as it said trading in its shares was being suspended.

* LS Cable signed an agreement to buy Nasdaq-listed wire and cable maker Superior Essex for $900 million or $45 per share in cash, the two companies said.

* Singapore printer SNP Corp shot up 10 percent after it received a takeover offer from Japan’s Toppan Printing, valuing the firm at S$208 million ($151.4 million).

* HSBC, Europe’s biggest bank, might consider pulling out of a $6.3 billion deal to take over South Korea’s No. 6 bank, Korea Exchange Bank, its Asia chief said.

* New Zealand casino operator Sky City Entertainment Group said it would raise its stake in the casino in the South Island city of Christchurch after the sale of its stake in a hotel in the city.

Sovereign wealth funds were thought to be nearly extinct sources of capital for the crumbling western banks. But life finds a way. The Government of Singapore Investment Corp, one of the world’s biggest sovereign wealth funds, said it would subscribe to UBS’s rights issue. A GIC spokeswoman declined to provide the value for the transaction but said it currently owns 0.4 percent in UBS common stock. It controls 9.54 percent of the voting rights in UBS. The fund invested 11 billion Swiss francs ($11 billion) in mandatory convertible notes in UBS last December, after the bank’s U.S. housing crisis losses. In January, GIC invested $6.88 billion in Citigroup. Its sister fund Temasek Holdings pumped $5 billion into Merrill Lynch. GIC says on its website that it manages well above $100 billion but some analysts estimate the figure is closer to $300 billion.

The U.S. Federal Reserve Board approved Bank of America Corp’s acquisition of Countrywide Financial Corp, the nation’s largest mortgage lender. Bank of America agreed in January to pay $4 billion for Countrywide, a California-based firm that helped fuel a multi-year housing boom that went bust when risky loans to shaky borrowers began to fail. In a statement, the federal regulator said it considered many comments for and against the bank buyout and “has considered carefully the financial factors of the proposal.” The Fed also said that it vetted about 770 individual comments on the proposed takeover and the views of many other stakeholders.

Applied Materials has approached beleaguered Dutch semiconductor equipment maker ASM International to buy a significant part of its business for $400 million to $500 million. Shares in ASMI jumped as much as 23 percent to an eight-month high after the company said its U.S. rival had expressed interest in two of its businesses that make machines to deposit thin films of materials on silicon wafers. ASMI, which is locked in a dispute with activist investors who are trying to sack its chief executive, said a divestment would have major implications for its strategy.

Privately held Landmark Communications, which owns the Weather Channel, has asked bidders for the cable network to submit another round of bids by today, the Wall Street Journal said, citing people familiar with the situation. A consortium of General Electric’s NBC Universal and private equity firms Blackstone Group and Bain Capital as well as Time Warner are bidding, sources told Reuters last week.

Other deals of the day:

* French information technology services company Sopra said its Axway subsidiary would acquire U.S. e-mail security software company Tumbleweed Communications at $2.70 a share.

* Banpu, Thailand’s biggest coal miner, said it planned to spend $420 million to acquire the remaining 78.40 percent stake in a coal miner in China.

* The board of Australian mining and utilities contractor Ausdrill advised shareholders to reject a A$436 million ($419 million) all-share takeover offer from Macmahon Holdings.

* New Zealand casino operator Sky City Entertainment said that it would keep its cinema business after a possible sale fell through.

* Franshion Properties (China) said it would buy a Chinese high-end real estate development and management firm, China Jin Mao (Group) for 11 billion yuan ($1.58 billion), a deal to be settled in cash and by issue of new shares.

* NTT DoCoMo, Japan’s top mobile phone operator, has sealed a deal to buy a 30 percent stake in Aktel, Bangladesh’s No. 3 cellphone carrier, for about $425 million, sources familiar with the matter said.