DealZone

Volkswagen sought to allay Suzuki Motor’s concerns it might overstep its bounds in a multi-billion-dollar alliance and try to bring the Japanese carmaker under its control.

State-owned People’s Insurance Company of China Group, one of the country’s largest insurers, plans to raise $5 billion to $6 billion in an initial public offering in Hong Kong and Shanghai, IFR reported, citing two sources with knowledge of the plans.

“Quite a few people in biotech are still lapping up all sorts of short-sighted, destructive advice from the financial powers that be,” reports Xconomy.

Facebook has raised $500 million from Goldman Sachs and Russian Internet investment group Digital Sky Technologies in a deal valuing the social networking site at $50 billion, the New York Times reported, citing people involved in the transaction.

“Facebook doesn’t need to stay worth $50 billion forever — Goldman just needs to engineer an IPO valuation somewhere north of that, then exit quietly in the public markets,” writes Felix Salmon about the deal.

Italy’s Fiat set its sights on a majority stake in Chrysler after completing a long-planned demerger of its car-making activities from its truck and tractor business. Click here for a factbox on the demerger.

Genzyme is showing how it can pressure Sanofi-Aventis. The U.S. biotech takeover target moved to unload its genetic-testing arm to Laboratory Corp on Monday for $925 million. The more Genzyme can do to fix itself up, the more likely it can squeeze its French suitor to sweeten its $18.5 billion takeover bid. Firms in the sector, once in play, almost always sell. A higher bid seems likely.

House-cleaning plans for the maker of rare-disease drugs are moving ahead. If Genzyme can fetch the same reasonable 2.5 times sales multiple for two other businesses it is shopping as it did from its genetic testing division, Genzyme will reap a total of about $1.3 billion. That's small beer, but all three units have been a management distraction. Last year, their combined operating margin was slightly negative.

Selling them off makes Genzyme more attractive. Moreover, they allow the top brass to focus on developing what looks to be a blockbuster drug for multiple sclerosis and fixing the firm's ongoing manufacturing problems, which would maximize value.

U.S. network equipment maker Cisco systems offers to buy Norwegian video-conferencing equipment maker Tandberg ASA for $3 billion in cash. The offer price of NOK 153.5 per share represents a premium of 11 percent to Tandberg’s closing price on Wednesday.

Sanofi-Aventis (SASY.PA) says it has acquired privately-held Fovea, a privately-held firm specialised in eye diseases, for up to 370 million euros.

For these stories and more deals-related news from Reuters, click here.

And here’s what we found in Thursday’s papers: 

* ViaSat Inc (VSAT.O), which provides satellite and other wireless networking systems, has agreed to buy Wild Blue Communications Inc for more than $565 million, the Wall Street Journal reports. The deal is a combination of $440 million in cash and $125 million in new Viasat shares. Wild Blue is owned by Liberty Media Corp (LINTA.O).

Roche’s megabucks Genentech buy is looking more like a reverse takeover — in some ways, at least.

The Swiss drugmaker splashed out $47 billion to buy out its biotech partner to secure access to Genentech’s impressive new drugs. But Roche’s U.S. operations are to operate under the Genentech name and research, development and commercial operations are all being based at the U.S. group’s South San Francisco headquarters.

Now Roche doesn’t even consider itself Big Pharma. It says it will leave the industry group Pharmaceuticals Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA) but will retain Genentech’s membership of the Biotechnology Industry Organization (BIO).

It wasn’t quite the market response Genentech CEO Arthur Levinson was looking for.

Levinson and his team worked hard to make the bull case for the biotech group by providing long-term forecasts to prove it is worth far more than Roche is willing to pay. Yet Genentech shares still ended down 4.6 percent, or nearly $4, in line with a grim market on March 2.

Roche investors, by contrast, were in distinctly chipper mood on March 3, marking up the Swiss group’s stock by more than 5 percent. 

Expect a bruising fight.

In the battle for control of the world’s most valuable biotech company, Roche CEO Severin Schwan is playing hard ball. The reason is simple: he needs to clinch a deal that clearly enhances earnings.

The Swiss drugmaker has been the most highly rated Big Pharma company for years but financial results last week suggest it may be losing its mojo. Certainly, its premium rating is slipping.

Genentech had wanted $112 a share but Roche’s tender offer for the 44 percent of Genentech it doesn’t already own actually cuts the price to $86.50, or about $42 billion, from the $89 proposed last July.

Pity the guys who dreamt up two of Wall Street’s coolest tickers — DNA and BUD — both of which look set to be consigned to the dustbin of history.

Genentech grabbed the three letters synonymous with biotechnology by being in on the ground floor of the gene revolution. Anheuser-Busch was lucky enough to have a beer brand known everywhere by one syllable. Now both look doomed.

Genentech faces a $43.7 billion bid from Roche for the 44 percent of the Californian biotech group that it doesn’t already own. Genentech is expected to succomb, albeit after a possibly sweetened offer. Anheuser has already agreed to a $52 billion takeover by InBev.

Lehman Brothers is looking for fresh capital in South Korea, the Wall Street Journal reports. If the investment bank does end up tapping South Korea, it will have taken slightly over a decade for the 1997 multibillion loan from the IMF, backed by Wall Street and the Federal Reserve, to come full circle. The Journal says Lehman is looking to state-run Korea Development Bank and Woori Financial Group as it searches for funds to ward off a Bear Stearnsian crisis of confidence. The IMF demanded strict economic reforms for its money. A South Korean lender, like the Chinese and Arab investors bailing out Citi and Merrill Lynch, might just want a juicier cut.

The best part of waking up is Folgers in your cup — with a side of Smuckers jelly. The maker of Jif peanut butter and Crisco oil said it would buy Folgers from Procter & Gamble for stock valued at $2.95 billion plus the assumption of $350 million in debt. J.M. Smucker & Co also acquired Jif and Crisco from P&G.

Yahoo set its annual shareholder meeting for Aug. 1 in the heart of Silicon Valley, as it braced for a proxy showdown with billionaire activist investor Carl Icahn. Earlier, The Wall Street Journal reported that Icahn would seek to remove Jerry Yang as Yahoo chief executive, citing the company’s failure to reach a merger or partnership deal with Microsoft. Icahn had proposed an alternate slate of directors for Yahoo’s board, but until now had not directly targeted Yang. “It’s no longer a mystery to me why Microsoft’s offer isn’t around,” the Journal quoted Icahn as saying. “How can Yahoo keep saying they’re willing to negotiate and sell the company on the one hand, while at the same time they’re completely sabotaging the process without telling anyone?”

Marc Cluzel, head of research at French drugmaker Sanofi-Aventis, talks to Reuters’ Ben Hirschler about the outlook for the company’s pipeline of new drugs.

The group had a major setback last June when U.S. experts recommended against approving its weight-loss drug Acomplia, also known as Zimulti, because of worries it might give some patients suicidal thoughts.But Cluzel says there are other exciting drugs in development, with half a dozen new products set to be submitted to regulators for approval this year.

The company has been stepping up its deals with biotech recently, clinching a major tie-up with Regeneron and signing a cancer vaccine deal with Oxford BioMedica that some analysts believe might eventually lead to a takeover.