DealZone

Research In Motion has turned down takeover overtures from Amazon.com and other potential buyers because the BlackBerry maker prefers to fix its problems on its own, according to people with knowledge of the situation. Amazon hired an investment bank this summer to review a potential merger with RIM, but it did not make a formal offer, said one of the sources. It is not clear whether informal discussions between Amazon and RIM ever led to specific price talk.

The Wall Street Journal reports that Microsoft and Nokia have discussed the idea of a joint bid for RIM, but the status of those talks remains unclear.

HSBC, Europe’s biggest bank, is retreating from Japan’s private banking market, selling a business that serves the wealthy to Credit Suisse, which is raising its profile in the world’s second-largest market for millionaires.

Tokio Marine said it will buy U.S. insurer Delphi Financial Group for $2.7 billion and is eying other acquisition targets, as Japan’s No.2 property-casualty insurer looks to expand outside its mature home market and diversify geographic risks.

Dozens of black-suited investigators, marching double-file, raided the office building of three small Olympus Corp subsidiaries Wednesday, one of 20 sites searched in a probe of a $1.7 billion accounting scandal that threatens the once-proud Japanese medical device maker’s survival.

Seems billionaire investor Carl Icahn has had enough of managing money for outsiders. The 75-year-old stock picker dropped a bit of surprising news on Tuesday when he said he plans on returning all of his clients’ money, making him the latest in a string of investors to do so.

Barnes & Noble’s bid to reinvent itself as a formidable competitor in the burgeoning e-books sector is off to a solid start. Its Nook is the second best-selling e-reader on the market behind Amazon’s Kindle, and the book chain’s chief says it has 25 percent of the e-books market.  So why can’t the bookseller find any buyers? Reuters correspondents Phil Wahba and Jessica Hall take a closer look in a new piece.

Jury selection in the trial against Galleon Group hedge fund founder Raj Rajaratnam kicks off the action today in a case at the heart of the biggest insider trading investigation in a generation.

Check out Sears Holdings getting a bigger stake of Sears Canada.

Hedge fund manager Bill Ackman (below) is selling his stake in Sears Canada, about 17.3 percent of the company, to Sears Holdings, the U.S. based operator of Sears and Kmart that is controlled by another hedge fund manager, Edward Lampert (right).

If you're scoring at home, that will give the U.S. Sears a 90.4 percent stake in the Canadian Sears.

Sears is paying C$30 for the shares, or 66 percent more than it was willing to pay in 2006 for all of the Sears Canada shares it did not own.

E Ink’s “electronic paper” is the special sauce that makes e-book readers like the Amazon Kindle possible, but it hasn’t proven to be much of a meal for its venture capital backers.

The privately held company was purchased by Taiwanese display maker Prime View International on Monday for $215 million, 12 years after it emerged from a Massachusetts Institute of Technology laboratory.

peHUB notes that the decade-plus span is far from ideal for VCs (the ideal horizon is five to seven years). Even worse, VCs including Intel Capital, Motorola Ventures, Solstice Capital, the McClatchy Company, Lucent Technologies, FA Technology Ventures, and the Hearst Corporation sunk some $148.8 million into E Ink over the years, for an underwhelming 1.4 multiple.

Not so fast Mr. Icahn. Lions Gate Entertainment is trying to defend itself against famed financier Carl Icahn by hiring an advisory team, including investment bank Morgan Stanley and the law firm Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen and Katz.

It also is in talks to offer a board seat to Mark Rachesky of MHR Fund Management, the studio's largest shareholder.

Icahn controls 14.5 percent of Lions Gate's shares and wants to increase his sway, seemingly because he's frustrated with things like costs and the company's decision to buy the TV Guide cable channel.