DealZone

Potash Corp’s search for buyers willing to top BHP Billiton’s $39 billion hostile offer may lead to China. “I am not saying that we are opposed to a sale, but what I am saying is we are opposed to a steal of the company,” said Potash Corp CEO Bill Doyle. Here’s a factbox on the current market for potash, and a graphic on BHP and Potash Corp.

“As an Intel-watcher for 30+ years, I have my doubts that this acquisition will work,” writes guest columnist Robert Cringely about Intel’s deal for McAfee. *View article

The NYT takes a look at Rio Tinto’s often troubled relationship with China, and how the mining company is working hard to patch things up. *View NYT article

Global M&A activity shatters typically one of the quietest months of the year. *View article *View the Investment Banking Scorecard *View WSJ wrap-up on this week’s moves

Chip maker Intel said it would buy security technology firm McAfee for $7.68 billion. “I think people were probably (expecting) some smaller acquisitions from Intel. It’s definitely — even by Intel’s standards — a pretty big acquisition for them,” said Vijay Rakesh, an analyst at Sterne Agee. *View article *View reaction from analysts and investors

GM declared plans for an IPO. For a breakdown of the U.S. government’s stake in the automaker, click here. Investors shouldn’t get too caught up in the IPO hype, writes Reuters columnist Antony Currie. The WSJ looks at some surprise risks gleaned from the IPO filings. The NYT follows the car maker’s progress over the past 100 years in this timeline.

Online gambling firms Sportingbet and 888 must strike deals to protect themselves from prosecution in the United States if they are to emerge as credible takeover candidates as the industry consolidates. *View article

BHP Billiton, the world’s biggest miner, is making its $130 a share offer for Potash Corp directly to shareholders, bypassing the Canadian company’s board which a day earlier called the bid “grossly inadequate.” *View article

Private equity firm Lone Star is scrapping plans to sell a majority stake in Korea Exchange Bank worth about $4 billion because of weak demand from potential investors, a local paper said. The decision, if confirmed, would be Lone Star’s third failure to sell KEB since buying into the bank in 2003. *View article

It doesn’t always take huge financial backing to start a company. The WSJ found some entrepreneurs who started out with little money but a lot of time and business savvy. *View WSJ article

The Obama administration will pick the brains of housing finance leaders on how to fix Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, but made one thing is clear: there is no going back to their pre-crisis structure. *View article

BHP Billiton may see potash as an ideal fit within its portfolio but today Potash Corp’s board rejected BHP’s unsolicited $38.6 billion offer, terming it as “grossly inadequate.” *View article

Energy stocks ranked among the worst performers in the second quarter on jitters about a double-dip recession. What did the top fund managers do? They staked out the sector much like they did with financial companies earlier in the year. *View article

Genzyme may be holding out for more money from suitor Sanofi-Aventis, but will find it difficult to persuade investors it is better off on its own.  *View article *View Genzyme timeline

When GM filed for bankruptcy last summer, the automaker wiped out creditors, and critics warned that Wall Street investors would have a long memory. What a difference a year makes. *View article

What’s better than an angel investor? That would be a super-angel investor, of course. This new breed is shaking up the venture-capital industry. *View WSJ article

AIG has started talks with potential investors to sell stakes in its Asian life insurance business AIA ahead of AIA’s planned IPO, sources say. *View article* In a related matter, Prudential says its failed bid for AIA, which collapsed in May, will cost less than first expected. *View article

General Motors posts its biggest quarterly profit in six years a day ahead of an expected IPO filing. *View article *View article

Private equity firms that benefited from Dubai’s boom years are now looking to the emirate for reforms needed to revive the sector, writes Nicolas Parasie and Dinesh Nair. *View analysis

Creating the world’s largest utility, GDF Suez’s deal with International Power shows how hot the energy and power M&A market is. Take a closer look at the deals announced this year. View PDF

One of Hollywood’s biggest flops has been Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. So Tinseltown financiers are understandably puzzled over what looks like a forthcoming sequel to the MGM solvency horror story: a buyout of Miramax, writes Rob Cox. *View column

Chinese banking giant ICBC may be about to get a run for its money from a small band of minority investors. Its plan to take full ownership of Hong Kong subsidiary ICBC Asia makes sense. But the unit’s minorities are in a strong position to make ICBC pay top whack, writes Wei Gu. *View column

Industrial and Commercial Bank of China Ltd, the world’s most valuable bank, says it will pay shareholders of its Hong Kong arm a 27 percent premium to take it private, as part of an effort to expand its presence there. *View article

GM is ratcheting up the PR in advance of an IPO, and the NYT takes a look at the mechanics of the promotion. *View NYT article

Who owns the “Sky” in “Skype”? *View paidContent article

peHUB is live-blogging KKR Earnings Call. *View peHUB article

Is a company that lost $88 billion from 2005 through the first quarter of 2009 and wiped out equity investors when it declared bankruptcy last spring worthy of another bet? The General Motors IPO is going to be a tough sell. *View article

Take a big picture look at the markets through the eyes of six European private equity executives. *View Financial News article

Internet telephony firm Skype filed with U.S. regulators to raise up to $100 million in an initial public offering of American depositary shares.  *View article

American International Group reports better-than-expected quarterly results and says it has started talks on disentangling itself from the U.S. government. The insurer is nearly 80 percent-owned by the government. *View article

Hedge fund investors scarred by global credit crisis losses are setting their expectations lower and beginning to content themselves with smaller gains they would have balked at two years ago.  *View article

“Being an entrepreneur is like eating glass and staring into the abyss of death,” Elon Musk tells TechCrunch. *View article