DealZone

American International Group could learn the fate of the stalled $2.2 billion sale of its Taiwan unit Nan Shan Life Insurance as early as Thursday, when Taiwan’s parliament will review a report on the deal from the top financial regulator.  Read the Reuters story here.

A clutch of private equity firms have bid up to 400 million pounds for British greetings card retailer Card Factory, sources familiar with the process told Reuters. Here is the story.

And in news reported by other media on Wednesday:

Barclays is looking to buy a retail bank in the US to extend its presence after buying Lehman Brothers, reports the Wall Street Journal. Barclays is not in talks and no deals are imminent, but has designated an internal team to assess possible targets.

Brazilian iron ore miner Ferrous Resources has revived plans for a $3 billion to $4 billion initial public offering in London, according to the Financial Times.  The company could come to market as early as May and the Board will meet on Friday to start deciding whether to proceed with an IPO this summer.

Ferrero — the maker of Nutella — might be considering an offer for an alliance with Cadbury, Il Sole 24 Ore says, saving the British group from Kraft’s clutches. Cadbury shares aren’t moving much, which says something about how the market sees the story. Elsewhere, Austria’s Erste Bank closed its rights issue late on Monday, with demand less than stellar.

The Lehman estate files its long-expected lawsuit against Barclays Capital, according to court documents. And with UBS’s investor day and the Euro Finance Week conference in Frankfurt on elsewhere, all eyes are on Europe’s banks again.

For all other Reuters stories about deals, click here.

British Prime Minister Gordon Brown plans to outline a sale of government assets on Monday aimed at raising 3 billion pounds, according to a draft speech provided by his office. The sale will be carried out over the next two years and include betting company Tote and the cross-channel rail link between the UK and France.

In other stories reported by the media on Monday and over the weekend:

British bank Lloyds has lined up a syndicate of investment banks to underwrite a 11 billion pound rights issue, the Sunday Times reports, without citing sources. The deal would be linked to Lloyds’ attempts to reduce its participation in the UK government’s toxic asset scheme.

Barclays is planning to spin off a 4 billion pound portfolio of complex credit assets as its presses ahead with a process to clean up its balance sheet, the Financial Times says, quoting people familiar with the matter.

(From Sarah Young at Acquisitions Monthly)

This week has seen policy-makers on both sides of the Atlantic contemplate the future of the banking industry.

Yesterday, Switzerland’s central bank joined the discussion. It is one country that truly knows the meaning of too big to fail – the combined assets of Credit Suisse and UBS were last year equivalent to six times Swiss GDP.

The restructuring and M&A activity that would come about should regulators introduce restrictions on the size of banks, or push for the division of investment and retail banking, must have deal advisers’ eyes watering with the thought of the fees that would be up for grabs.

Barclays will look a whole lot healthier after securing $13.5 billion from BlackRock for its crown-jewellish BGI asset-management arm. This is the same Barclays that turned down aid from the British government and bought defunct Lehman Brothers’ U.S. investment banking business in September, giving it that heroic posture of a down-but-not-out, maybe somewhat punch-drunk prize fighter — Britain’s own Rocky Balboa. Now, as far as Chief Executive John Varley is concerned, BGI-less Barclays is one of the best-capitalized banks in the world.

Investors are cheering Barclays on. Its share price has soared more than fivefold in the last three months, after crashing to a 24-year low on fears that it might need taxpayer funds.

The deal makes BlackRock the world’s biggest asset manager. Though the wealthy of the world are hurting in the recession along with the paycheck-to-paycheck crowd, it’s hard to see Barclays staying in the back seat of the lucrative asset-management market for long. Under the cash-and-shares deal, Barclays takes a 19.9 percent stake and two seats on the board of the enlarged group, to be called BlackRock Global Investors (giving the new firm the added bonus of not having to change BGI’s stationery).

Barclays‘ seemingly never-ending effort to get top dollar for its Barclays Global Investors unit appears to be enticing some Middle East money behind the current best bid from U.S. fund manager BlackRock, which is believed to be in the neighborhood of $12 billion.

Barclays said it had received proposals for BGI and iShares from a number of parties, including BlackRock, and was continuing talks. BlackRock confirmed the talks, but both sides said issues remained that could derail a deal. San Francisco-based BGI is the world’s biggest fund manager, with $1.5 trillion in assets under management and would more than double the size of BlackRock.

With Bank of New York Mellon also in the hunt, sources say Barclays may keep a hand in the game after a sale, possibly taking a stake of up to 20 percent in the enlarged asset manager. Media reports say BlackRock may get funding from Middle East investors, possibly including some Barclays shareholders. The Qatar Investment Authority and Adia, the government investment arm of Abu Dhabi, are in talks alongside Kuwait’s KIO to inject $3 billion into BlackRock for a 12 percent stake, the UK’s Sunday Telegraph newspaper said.

Abu Dhabi sells 3.5 billion pounds of shares in Barclays, making a handy profit, and sending the stock down well over 10 percent. In another share sale, wind turbine maker Gamesa is suspended after Iberdrola offloads 10 percent of the company in the market. Otherwise, cars still dominate: GM has filed for bankruptcy, Germany is to pay bridge financing to Opel today and a U.S. judge said overnight the sale of Chrysler will be effective on Friday. Here are today’s top deals headlines.

And in the newspapers:

British publishing group Pearson is in talks with Prisa over the possibility of buying a stake in Santillana, the Spanish media firm’s publishing house and market leader in school textbooks in Latin America, the Financial Times reported.
Prisa could be looking to sell up to 30 percent of the unit in a 315 million pound deal. Other bidders include Cengage Learning, Oxford University Press and Infinitas Learning, the paper says.

Citigroup Inc told about five former top executives they will not be paid tens of millions of dollars in promised severance payouts, the Wall Street Journal cited people familiar with the matter as saying.

Barclays Capital is thinking big. As Reuters banking correspondent Steve Slater wrote earlier:

“Barclays Capital, the investment bank arm of Britain’s Barclays Plc (BARC.L), will hire more than 750 staff this year as part of its plan to win leading positions in equities and M&A advisory, a top executive said.

“The bank, which bought the U.S. business of Lehman Brothers in September, is now expanding in Europe and Asia. It is also targeting a top three spot in prime services to take advantage of a retreat by rivals servicing hedge funds, he said.

As Steve Slater and I wrote earlier:

“British bank Barclays has sidelined private equity houses bidding for iShares, its exchange-traded fund unit, and is looking to sell its entire asset management arm instead if offers approach $12 billion.

“U.S. money manager BlackRock and Bank of New York Mellon are among the interested bidders for Barclays Global Investors (BGI), the world’s biggest asset manager, people familiar with the matter said.”

Looking to boost its capital position and to justify its decision not to take state aid, Barclays is aiming to maximize the proceeds from any asset sales.

Barclays Capital has hired a senior Citigroup banker and a former top Morgan Stanley banker as co-heads of European mergers and acquisitions (M&A), as the former debt powerhouse repositions itself as a full-service, global investment bank.

The duo are Matthew Ponsonby, formerly Citigroup’sglobal co-head of infrastructure investment banking, and Mark Warham, who until earlier this year had been chairman of UK investment banking at Morgan Stanley.

BarCap, like SocGen and others, sees a chance to grab market share in M&A and other advisory work. Granted, European M&A volumes are less than a third of 2007′s — but some competitors are weakened and some bankers are restless (if not actually unemployed).