DealZone

Around $7 billion of Australia’s coal assets are in the crosshairs of predators from Seoul to Shanghai, as Asia jostles for supplies to feed its burgeoning needs, pushing up bid valuations for Australian coal miners. *View article *View factbox

Barnes & Noble’s predicament is sounding like Blockbuster’s — meaning, unfortunately, the fading video rental chain not a successful movie. The U.S. bookseller’s cash flow is sinking and technological shifts look set to worsen that. What exactly the bookseller can do is unclear. *View column

Bernard Madoff had the big numbers attached to his crime but Kenneth Starr’s alleged Ponzi scheme has celebrities. Vanity Fair takes a look into Starr’s world. *View Vanity Fair article

A focus on games could be Google’s ticket to entering the social networking arena, as the Internet giant seeks to overcome a string of lackluster initiatives that have left it on the sidelines of the booming market. *View article *View GigaOM article

General Motors’ coming initial public offering may be a hard sell. After all, the automaker burnt investors with its Chapter 11 filing a little over a year ago. The IPO of GM and, in time, those of other cleaned up ex-bankrupts like Delphi and Chrysler, deserve cautious investor interest. *View article

Barnes & Noble shares soared 21 percent after the struggling bookseller said it was up for sale and could get a bid from its founder to go private. *View article *View NYT’s article on who may bid for the company

Citigroup is poised to put its British online bank Egg up for auction as part of a plan to dispose of billions of dollars in unwanted assets, the Financial Times says. *View article

Venture Capital Journal profiles 10 young venture capitalists who are poised to do great things. All of their “Hot Prospects” are under 36 years old and all have yet to make their mark in VC. The series runs all week.*View article *View profile of Chi-Hua Chien *View profile of Ann Miura-Ko

Asahi President Naoki Izumiya told Reuters he expects to have $9.2 billion on tap for acquisitions over the next five years as it looks for new growth drivers outside the shrinking domestic beer market. * View article

Is the SEC’s $75 million settlement with Citigroup a victory for Wall Street accountability or a punishment for taxpayers and Citi shareholders? *View NYT article

Chances are, every big pharmaceutical company is running the numbers and weighing the pros and cons of acquiring Genzyme, but the focus is on French drugmaker Sanofi-Aventis, which has yet to deliver a bid. Citi expects a Genzyme deal to be worth $19.7-20.5 billion. * View article * More coverage

The merger market is crawling at its slowest pace ever, with deals taking longer to close as players at every step move with extra caution amid fluctuating stock prices. * View article

WSJ takes a look at Goldman and its dealings with AIG. * View WSJ article

Reckitt Benckiser agreed to buy Durex condoms maker SSL for $3.8 billion. SSL stock jumped on the news as potential counterbidders could include Johnson & Johnson and GlaxoSmithKline, which are looking to expand their over-the-counter businesses. * View article

AIG is set to elevate Goldman Sachs to the top role for handling the initial public offering of its Asian life insurance unit, sources said. Morgan Stanley was an early favorite to lead AIA’s aborted IPO last year, before Prudential offered to buy the unit and IPO plans were shelved. The Prudential deal subsequently fell apart. * View article

Is Facebook worth $11 billion or $30 billion? Investors, and underwriting banks, have been salivating over an IPO for months. MSN Money takes a look at how to value the social-networking company. * View article

Will Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co’s listing on the Big Board bring a big yawn or release pent-up investor demand for the iconic private equity firm? It could be a bellwether for rivals looking to follow suit. *  View article *  View factbox

Agricultural Bank of China’s $19 billion IPO made a lackluster debut in Shanghai, weighing on the market and underscoring the difficulty other Chinese banks will face tapping investors for billions more. * View Article *  View newsmaker

U.S. nutritional supplements maker NBTY said it agreed to be bought by Carlyle Group for $3.8 billion in one of the biggest private equity deals so far this year. The buyout underscores a revival in private equity deals following the credit crisis. *  View article

It is going to be tough for Agricultural Bank of China’s (AgBank) IPO to match the first-day jump in share price enjoyed by its rivals, analysts say. Institutions are expected help stabilize the stock price of the politically sensitive IPO but liquidity, the economy’s health and a flood of new share issues are seen as action against the company. *View article *More coverage *Asia’s top IPOs graphic

Shares in cellphone maker Nokia edged lower as analysts questioned the wisdom of its possible purchase of Motorola’s network equipment unit to boost its weak North American position. *View article

The board of American International Group is expected to meet to consider the future of its AIA unit, with a public float seen as the most likely outcome, sources say. *View article

An initial public offering of AIA is likely, sources say. AIA, seen as AIG’s Asian crown jewel, is a key cog in the bailed-out insurer’s plans to repay U.S. taxpayers, who now own nearly 80 percent of the company. View article

The Wall Street reform bill appeared to gain the support it needed for final congressional approval as three key Republicans said they would support the measure. Analysts — and opponents of the bill — expect the bill to ultimately reach President Barack Obama’s desk for approval. View article

Former Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson says if the authority given in the Wall Street reform bill currently before Congress was available during his tenure, the impact of the financial crisis would have been significantly reduced. View NYT article

BP is looking to sell assets to help pay for the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. A source says BP is in talks with U.S. oil and gas company Apache Corp. The Sunday Times reported that the talks involved $12 billion in assets. View article

Aon, the world’s largest insurance brokerage, said it will acquire human-resource service company Hewitt Associates for about $4.9 billion in cash and stock to beef up its consulting business. The Aon-Hewitt deal is the second major deal in the consultancy space in a year. View article

If you are feeling bullish, then you’re in agreement Warren Buffett, Ken Fisher, Leon Cooperman and John Paulson. The WSJ takes a look at what these four market heavyweights are buying. View WSJ article