A large Ernst & Young (E&Y) survey finds plenty of appetite for acquisitions, but also finds many companies feel constrained in their dealmaking, and one in 25 is simply “focused on survival”:

“Most companies believe the time is ripe for deals, but only one third have the strength and agility to snap up “once-in-a-lifetime” acquisition opportunities in the wake of the credit crisis, according to a global survey.

Ernst & Young, which quizzed 490 top executives from “major industry players” across 32 countries, said 33 percent were likely or highly likely to buy firms in the next 12 months, with 25 percent expecting to bid in the next six months. There were no data on the size of possible targets.”

For the full Reuters story, click here.

Dutch bancassurer ING says it will split itself in two as part of a restructuring deal with the European Commission, transforming itself over the next four years into a smaller Europe-focused bank.

It is also launching a 7.5 billion euro rights issue to pay back 50 percent of its aid from the Dutch state early.

Also in the Netherlands, brewer Heineken has held discussions to buy the brewing operations of Mexican conglomerate Femsa, the Financial Times reports.

In other M&A news:

UK budget retailer Matalan has had offers from private equity firms that could value it at around 1.5 billion pounds, according to several reports.

Indian state-run telecoms firm Bharat Sanchar Nigam (BSNL) regards a $13.7 billion price for a 46 percent stake in Kuwait’s Zain Telecom is expensive, the Business Standard reported, citing the firm’s chairman. For the Reuters story click here.

Lloyds Banking Group’s private equity unit LDC is in talks to acquire legal outsourcing company CPA Global for 400 million pounds ($666 million), the Financial Times reports.

Insurance companies are the focus of many deals pages on Thursday, with Prudential eyeing a listing in Asia, AXA moving to sell a stake in China’s Taikang and Aviva detailing its restructuring now the Delta Lloyd IPO is moving.

Other deal news today includes:

* South Korea’s Korea National Oil Corp (KNOC) has agreed to buy Canada’s Harvest Energy Trust for C$1.8 billion, the Canadian company said.

* Brazilian telecoms company GVT hired the local investment banking units of Credit Suisse and Goldman Sachs to help it respond to takeover attempts by two global rivals.

* Zambia has eight suitors remaining in the hunt to buy Zamtel, Zambia’s fixed-line telephone operator, a source told Reuters.

With just over two months to the end of the year, there is a sense that time is running out for getting deals done in 2009. Many of the long-running deal sagas are coming to a close, or are getting done. Overnight, news emerged that BAA has finally agreed a 1.5 billion pound sale of British airport Gatwick.

Other deal news in the papers on Wednesday include:

* U.S. Bancorp is eyeing FBOP Corp, an owner of eight banks that may be put up for sale by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp (FDIC), the Wall Street Journal reported on Tuesday, citing people familiar with the situation.

* National Express’s largest shareholder, Spain’s Jorge Cosmen, supports a merger proposal by British bus and rail operator Stagecoach, the Financial Times reported.

For months, as he endured hearings on Capitol Hill and fought off a series of lawsuits, Bank of America CEO Ken Lewis trudged through a post-apocalyptic financial landscape against a steady drumbeat of questions about his future. The deal he had called “the strategic opportunity of a lifetime” — his purchase/salvage of Merrill Lynch — had swung from an act of patriotism, keeping the American way of banking from utter ruin, to a scandal over Merrill losses and bonuses.

Perhaps he should have seen the writing on the walls of the vacant houses financed by Countrywide, the mortgage lender Lewis purchased/salvaged just six months before the Merrill deal. The two transactions may have been strategic gems, but they were laced with political poison as the economy floundered toward its dramatic deleveraging and taxpayers pumped $20 billion into Bank of America to fund the Merrill deal.

“It was only a matter of time,” Campbell Harvey, a professor at Duke University’s business school, told Jon Stempel. “There is too much collateral damage.” As Stempel reports, Lewis spent north of $130 billion on acquisitions, including FleetBoston Financial Corp, the credit card issuer MBNA Corp, LaSalle Bank Corp, Countrywide, Charles Schwab Corp’s U.S. Trust private banking unit, and Merrill. In buying Merrill, he added a giant investment bank to what was already the largest U.S. retail bank, credit card issuer and mortgage provider. (Wells Fargo & Co has since become No. 1 in mortgages.)

Lewis plans to be gone by the end of the year and leaves no immediate successor, so Bank of America has only a few months to figure out who to anoint. Though his demise is a cautionary tale, odds are good that the bank’s worst days are behind it. An incoming chief can blame Lewis for any ill-conceived agreements surrounding Merrill. More importantly, with economic recovery apparently at hand, Lewis’ deals of a lifetime have a better chance than ever of paying off.

More big consumer brands are being dealt across the Atlantic. With Kraft’s bid for Cadbury churning, consumer goods giant Unilever plans to pay 1.275 billion euros ($1.87 billion) for a chunk of Sara Lee’s personal care brands, helping the cake maker sheds non-core businesses to focus on food. Sara Lee shareholders are sweet on the deal – bidding the stock up more than 9 percent in early trade. In a space reserved for winners and losers, this deal looks like it has natural benefits for both parties.

The asset sale is quite a bit less rich than the chocolate deal, which is for the whole of Cadbury rather than just its brands, the soap business brings with it a fresh scent of a recovery in deals activity. It is the first major acquisition for the Anglo-Dutch company’s new Chief Executive Paul Polman, and Sara Lee’s CEO Brenda Barnes is still only half-way through her business-shedding exercise.

Credit Suisse analyst Charlie Mills said the price Unilever is paying of 10 times core operating profit, or EBITDA, is not huge by industry standards, reflecting the fairly disparate collection of assets. Brylcream hair gel is part of the mix.

“We’re not convinced that this is the greatest collection of assets but another acquisition shows Unilever still moving from the back foot (cost cutting and disposals) to the front foot (volume growth and acquisitions),” he said. It may also be worth remembering that the deal speaks to Unilever’s business. It is built on brands, whereas Sara Lee is a brand unto itself.

So far as markets are concerned, Sara Lee is the winner here. Having been able to find a buyer for a huge chunk of assets it had on the block, it is now going to be able to buy back more stock and preserve its 11-cent quarterly dividend.

ING sells its 51 percent stake in a wealth management joint venture to partner Australia and New Zealand Banking Group for $1.6 billion as the Dutch group slims down through asset sales.

ING is offloading assets to raise 6-8 billion euros, and is also selling its Asian and Swiss private banking assets. HSBC is the front-runner to buy the Asian private bank assets, sources tell Reuters.

In other M&A news:

Britain’s biggest pubs group, Punch Taverns, puts more than 300 of its worst performing pubs up for sale as it strives to cut its debt pile.

French state-controlled power group EDF could raise its stake in waste, water and transport firm Veolia to 13-14 percent as Veolia’s boss is set to go to EDF, French daily Les Echos said.

For deals reported by other media click here.

Canadian media firm CanWest Global Communications Corp will sell down its 50.1 percent stake in Australia’s Ten Network, worth about A$714 million ($620 million), in a move that could put Ten into play.

In other M&A news reported by Reuters and other media on Thursday:

* Chilean forestry group CMPC said it is in talks to buy a unit of Brazilian giant Aracruz for $1.4 billion, which would give it access to the world’s cheapest pulp producing market.

* Chinese solar wafer manufacturer ReneSola said it will buy Dynamic Green Energy Ltd for about $88.5 million, mostly in stock, expanding the arts company into the market for solar panels.

* U.S. pharmaceuticals company Abbott Laboratories has made an offer to buy the drug unit of Belgian conglomerate Solvay SA, competing with Swiss drugmaker Nycomed, the Wall Street Journal says, citing people familiar with the matter.

* Toyota will sell its brokerage unit to Tokai Tokyo Financial as part of efforts to consolidate resources into automobile operations, the Nikkei business daily reports.

POSCO and South Korea’s chemicals-to-brokerage group Hanwha are studying a potential bid for Daewoo International, sources close to the companies tell Reuters. Daewoo International’s market value is around $3 billion.

Meanwhile, five British companies unleash a wave of cashcalls to raise over 1.6 billion pounds, rushing to strengthen balance sheets during a “window of opportunity” as investors show a strong appetite to support fundraisings.

In M&A news reported by Reuters and elsewhere on Wednesday:

U.S. oil and gas exploration and production firm SandRidge Energy strikes a deal to buy bankrupt rival, Crusader Energy Group, for $230 million, in a cash and stock deal that would give it additional acreage in the Anadarko and Permian basins.

British mobile phone operator Vodafone is buying another 6 percent stake in its Indian mobile joint venture from two of its associates for $180 million, adding to its 52 percent ownership, the Economic Times reports.

Taiwan’s Far Eastone wants to buy private equity firm MBK’s stake in China Network Systems, a Taiwan cable TV operator, The Commercial Times says. Click here for Reuters story.

China’s Geely Automobile, whose parent has been linked with both Volvo and Opel, said it would raise $334 million by issuing convertible bonds and warrants to an affiliate of Goldman Sachs.

Genetic-testing specialist Qiagen is buying British peer DxS Ltd to expand its cancer diagnostics business and will raise its capital to fund the deal and possibly further takeovers.

There are signs of life returning to M&A in the potash sector -- with market speculation that Potash Corp of Saskatchewan may bid for Germany's K+S.

Canada's Potash Corp -- the world's largest producer of the key ingredient in synthetic crop fertiliser -- said last month that North American potash inventories had fallen in July, an indication that sales of potash had begun to move again after a seizing up of the market.

Some analysts reckon that the market is now reaching a bottom and that there will be a sharp rebound in 2010 as farmers start buying again.

K+S Chief Executive Norbert Steiner told Reuters in an interview on Tuesday that the world's fourth-largest potash supplier saw an end to a decline in prices in Europe, but that demand remains depressed.

And K+S is not in the strongest position right now. The company is looking at a capital increase as one of a clutch of measures to bolster its balance sheet following its acquisition of Morton Salt from Dow Chemical.

With K+S trading at just over 35 euros/share compared with a price of nearly 84 euros/share a year ago, it is probably time for Potash Corp to at least take a look.

There is also renewed speculation that Potash Corp itself could be taken over by a mining company.