Fresh from having Yahoo slip through its fingers, Microsoft’s plan to leapfrog into Consumerville takes another hit with news that Nokia is paying 264 million euros ($410 million) to buy out other shareholders of Symbian, the dominant player in smartphone software. Nokia says it will dissolve royalty payments for the platform, making it more attractive when compared to Google’s rival free platform, Android. Symbian’s operating systemis already used in two-thirds of smartphones; Nokia makes 40 percent of all phones sold globally. “This puts a lot of pressure on Microsoft right at a time when they are trying to really push into the consumer space,” said Gartner analyst Carolina Milanesi. “For operators this offers a good alternative to Android.”

British gas producer BG Group launched a hostile $13.1 billion bid for Australia’s Origin Energy, as it seeks to boost its position in Asia-Pacific’s fast-growing gas market. BG is taking its A$13.8 billion all-cash bid, valuing Origin at A$15.50 a share, direct to shareholders after Origin’s board rejected it last month. Origin claimed then that its coal seam gas reserves alone were worth over $15 billion. Shares in Origin, which have surged over 85 percent this year, rose 6.2 percent to a record A$16.48 before closing up 5.8 percent at A$16.42, indicating investors expect an even higher offer. If successful, the deal would be the second-largest foreign takeover of an Australian company after Cemex, North America’s largest cement producer, bought Rinker Group last year for $14.2 billion.

Russian oil major Lukoil bought a 49 percent stake in Italian refiner ERG SpA’s Mediterranean plant for 1.35 billion euros ($2.1 billion), in a sign of the growing energy ties between Russia and Italy. Lukoil and ERG, Italy’s second-biggest refiner by market share, agreed a joint venture valued at 2.75 billion euros to control ERG’s Isab di Priolo refinery on Sicily. ERG will have 51 percent of the new company.

Other deals of the day:

* UBS said it had acquired Dutch wealth manager VermogensGroep.

* French aero engine and telecoms maker Safran said it had bought Dutch-based passport and secure ID document maker Sdu-Identifaction.

* Shares in China Oilfield Services, an arm of the CNOOC, jumped more than 3 percent as speculation grew about a potential takeover of Norwegian offshore driller Awilco Offshore.

* South Korean food group Dongwon said it will buy canned tuna company StarKist from Del Monte Foods for about $300 million, in the latest push by South Korean food makers for global expansion.

* Australian zinc and lead miner Perilya rejected as inadequate a takeover proposal from CBH Resources, both companies said, but Perilya left the door open to further talks.

* Flowers Foods, which produces baked goods, said it agreed to acquire Holsum Bakery in a cash and stock deal.

* Italy’s Banca Popolare dell’Emilia Romagna will launch a buyout offer for the 71.8 percent of its Meliorbanca unit it does not already own at 3.2 euros per share, BPER said.

* Hospital operator Tenet Healthcare said it will sell its interest in health care services company Broadlane Inc to TowerBrook Capital Partners for proceeds of about $155 million.

* Occidental Petroleum said it is buying a stake in a major Canadian oil sands project for C$500 million ($492 million), giving it a foothold in one of the world’s biggest developing oil plays as crude prices surge.

* Digimarc, a provider of secure identity technology, said it is spinning off its digital watermarking business as part of a deal with L-1 Identity Solutions, a photo and fingerprint identity equipment maker.

A story in The Wall Street Journal about Yahoo’s “reorganization” plans even as executives are leaving had us wondering which came first, the reorganization or the departures. The cynical might envision two scenarios:

Scenario 1: Yahoo begins hemorrhaging executives the week after it chooses Google over Microsoft. Investors, already mad at CEO Jerry Yang and the board for not cutting a deal with Microsoft, are likely to see the loss of top talent as a fallout. So Yahoo decides to do some damage control by “reorganizing” its various products, such as mail and messaging, into something more centralized, and indicate that as the reason for some six departures this week.

Scenario 2: After failing to strike a deal with Microsoft, and with investors less than thrilled at the Google partnership, Yahoo needs to do something to show the world it’s worth more than $47.5 billion. It dips into a fast-depleting bag of tricks and pulls out, wait, a “reorganization” plan we’ve sort of heard before. Executives shake their heads, worry that may not save the company and that they’re better off as venture capitalists (or maybe they’re considering job offers at Microsoft), and begin deserting.

So which came first, the chicken or the egg? Send us your thoughts.

(Photo: Reuters)

With Google looking like the big winner after doing an ad search deal with Yahoo, pretty much everyone else involved is looking like a loser. Microsoft will have to take its mammoth war chest and try to find another way to make a meaningful stab at the coveted online ad space — or concede the market altogether. Though Yahoo is waving enhanced revenue and cash flow figures around, the deal is seen as better for Google, which is the undisputed heavyweight champion in ad search and just gets a juicy space to show how mighty it is. “Google has made an enormous gain strategically. This move might well have shut Microsoft out of the online space altogether,” said Sanford Bernstein analyst Jeffrey Lindsay. Speculation is rising that the Yahoo/Google deal could provoke antitrust scrutiny, and Carl Icahn still has his troops massing to oust Jerry Yang and the Yahoo board. But if he had any clout to force Yahoo into a deal with Microsoft, it wasn’t on show yesterday. Did he lose cred, or does he plan to keep fighting? He may say soon, but probably not on his blog.

With signs that its wealthy clientele are growing nervous, UBS has wrapped up a 16 billion franc ($15.4 billion) rights issue. Flows into its wealth management business slowed to a trickle in the first three months of the year, and this is the Swiss bank’s second effort to resuscitate finances ravaged by the global markets crisis. Dieter Ewald, a fund manager at UBS shareholder Frankfurt Trust, said such concerns had prompted him recently to pare back his investment in the Swiss bank. “UBS is handicapped,” he said. “We are worried that wealth management will be hit. We want to see that the new management can bring it back on track, and then we would invest more again.”

Pfizer may bid for Ranbaxy Laboratories, countering a $4.6 billion offer by Japan’s Daiichi Sankyo for the Indian generic drug maker, the Business Standard newspaper said. Ranbaxy’s shares jumped nearly 5 percent on the report while Daiichi Sankyo’s shares dropped 2 percent. Daiichi Sankyo and Ranbaxy are seeking to become a pharmaceuticals powerhouse that sells both branded drugs and generics. The newspaper added Pfizer had held talks with the Ranbaxy founders for a possible acquisition a year earlier.

An infrastructure fund managed by Australia’s Babcock & Brown is to buy UK train leasing firm Angel Trains from Royal Bank of Scotland for 3.6 billion pounds ($7 billion) including debt. The deal came as shares in Babcock and Brown plunged for a second day on concerns about its debt and ability to raise funds but it will help Royal Bank of Scotland, Britain’s second-biggest bank, which is selling off non-core assets to further boost its balance sheet after raising 12 billion pounds ($23.5 billion) this week in the biggest ever rights issue.

Other deals of the day:

* Britain’s AEA Technology said it would buy U.S. company Project Performance Corp for $65 million and would raise 39.7 million pounds ($77.6 million) through a rights issue to help fund the deal.

* Struggling Finnish fine paper maker M-real Oyj cancelled a plan to divest its Reflex paper mill in Germany to Arjowiggins Group, citing to a condition set by the European Commission.

* India’s Jet Airways has decided to pull out of talks to buy a stake in low-cost carrier SpiceJet owing to differences over valuation, Business Standard newspaper said, citing sources from both airlines.

* A property investment arm of Morgan Stanley plans to sell at least two high-end serviced apartment projects in Shanghai, which are wholly owned by the Wall Street bank, for several billion yuan, people familiar with the situation said.

* South Korea’s National Pension Service, the world’s fifth-largest pension fund, will pump $173 million into a deal in which LS Cable has agreed to buy wire and cable maker Superior Essex.

Citigroup chief Vikram Pandit has sold off assets here and there in the months since taking over the top job, including stakes in CitiStreet, CitiCapital and Diners Club. But with sources saying some $400 billion of extraneous assets are going on the block, it’s fair to ask whether the head of the country’s biggest bank is being boldly aggressive or slamming the panic button.

“The only reason you’d sell off that many assets is you have a lot more losses coming than you originally thought,” said Jim Huguet, co-chief executive at fund manager Great Companies LLC, which does not own Citi shares. Since late last year, Citi has recorded more than $45 billion of writedowns and credit losses, raised more than $40 billion of new capital including $2 billion of preferred shares this week, and slashed its dividend 41 percent. The Financial Times, which first reported the story on Thursday, said the moves would take place over several years.

Global economic instability has created huge investment opportunities for China Investment Corp, but the sovereign wealth fund’s head said he will be careful not to destabilize countries where it operates. CIC paid $5 billion in December for a stake in U.S. investment bank Morgan Stanley but has otherwise kept its powder dry as Western financial institutions have sought to replenish capital depleted by big subprime credit losses. “The current international market turbulence has produced unprecedented investment opportunities,” said Lou Jiwei, head of the $200 billion sovereign wealth fund. “In the 1990s, some hedge funds exploited defects in the macroeconomic policies of some emerging economies and attacked them, which damaged their economies and caused hardship for people,” he said. “CIC will certainly never do a similar thing.”

Sovereign Bancorp, the second-largest U.S. savings and loan, plans to raise just over $1 billion in an equity offering to help it navigate a difficult economic environment, according to a person close to the transaction. The offering will be broadly distributed to institutional investors and will likely be conducted over the weekend. Sovereign is determining how much Banco Santander, which has a 24.99 percent stake in the thrift, might participate in the offering, while keeping any transaction with the Spanish bank at arms-length, the person said.

Google expects to launch new products for its YouTube Web video service in the next few months and sees reason for closer cooperation with Yahoo, Google Chief Executive Eric Schmidt said. Schmidt has said getting the video sharing site to make money is the Web search company’s top priority for the year. He did not give details of the products, however, and they are not even in beta testing. The Web search leader played a large role in the takeover battle between Microsoft and Yahoo. During a two-week test, it sold search advertisements on rival Yahoo last month as part of Yahoo’s attempt to find an alternative option to Microsoft’s offer. Schmidt said the trial run provided good reason for the companies to discuss cooperation, but there was no deal yet.

Other deals of the day:

* U.S. private equity firm The Carlyle Group will lead a 58.1 billion yen ($560 million) management buyout of an LCD glass venture jointly owned by Japan’s Hoya Corp and Nippon Sheet Glass, Hoya said.

* Norwegian aluminum group Norsk Hydro said it has agreed to buy privately owned Spanish aluminum building systems group Alumafel for 77 million euros ($118 million).

* Shares in British engineering software firm Flomerics Group surged after rejecting a buyout offer from larger U.S. rival Mentor Graphics, saying it would explore interest from several other parties.

* A local fund managed by U.S-based Lombard Investments plans to buy 10 percent of Asiasoft Corp, Thailand’s top online gaming firm, for up to $11.3 million, partly via an IPO this month, an IPO underwriter said.

* Australia’s Macquarie Group is interested in buying a key part of German power giant E.ON as it prowls for investment opportunities, one of its top managers said.