With tens of billions in the bank collecting dust since its failed bid for Yahoo, and the elusive promise of the Internet still beckoning, Microsoft returned to the market for Internet search businesses with a $486 million purchase of Greenfield Online, the U.S.-listed owner of European price comparison website ciao.com. The buy is meant to help lift Microsoft out of fifth place in the European search market by giving a boost to its Live Search platform. Google’s monster lead in the search market is a whopping 62 percent and 79 percent in Europe, according to the most recent data published by Web usage tracker ComScore. Microsoft has a 2 percent market share in Europe and 9 percent worldwide, behind both Google and Yahoo. In Europe, Microsoft is also outranked by online auction site eBay and Russia’s Yandex.

Four large hedge funds, all Huntsman shareholders, have proposed a plan to finance at least $500 million of the $6.5 billion buyout of the chemical company by a unit of Apollo Global Management. Hedge funds Citadel Investment Group, D.E. Shaw & Co, MatlinPatterson Global Advisers and Pentwater Growth Fund, and as of this morning, the Huntsman family, have agreed to team up on the financing plan, but Apollo’s Hexion Specialty Chemicals unit rejected the plan last night, saying Huntsman’s increased debt and decreased earnings since the deal was struck in July 2007 would no longer make a combined company solvent. “We are not seeking to renegotiate this transaction,” Hexion responded in a statement. “We are seeking to terminate it, and obtain judicial confirmation that Hexion has no obligation to pursue the acquisition or to pay Huntsman a termination fee.”

Allianz is set to sell Dresdner Bank to Commerzbank, sources with direct knowledge of the matter say, in a deal that will fuse Germany’s second- and third-biggest lenders. The deal, to be announced as soon as this weekend, will see Commerzbank take a 51 percent stake in Dresdner and buy the rest later, the sources said. Taking over Dresdner, which analysts estimate to be worth about 9 billion euros ($13 billion), will create a group to rival flagship lender Deutsche Bank and change the face of banking in Germany, Europe’s biggest economy. It will give Commerzbank a badly needed leg up in its home market, which is dominated by state not-for-profit lenders and allow Allianz to end an unhappy marriage that unsuccessfully tried to match investment bankers with insurance salesmen. The deal is likely to result in heavy job cuts, which would have been avoided had Allianz chosen to sell to another would-be buyer, China Development Bank.

Bain Capital and Carlyle Group are among the private equity firms through to the next round of bidding for a stake in the telecom unit being spun out of Hong Kong’s PCCW, according to sources. A deal, expected to come late this year, could fetch $2.5 billion. Two sources involved in the deal said Goldman Sachs’s private equity arm was considering joining TPG Capital in its own offer for the unit, though they could not confirm that the two had officially linked up. Sources also said Apax Partners moved into the next round of bids, due in mid to late October. PCCW, Hong Kong’s former monopoly fixed-line carrier, said in May it planned to fold its core media and telecoms businesses into a separate firm called HKT and sell 45 percent of the new company. At the time, PCCW shares had dropped 90 percent since 2000.

U.S. private equity firm Carlyle Group is seeking a new investor for Willcom, a Japanese mobile phone operator needing $1.8 billion to develop new technology services, four people familiar with the matter said. Carlyle, which owns 60 percent of unlisted Willcom, has hired Merrill Lynch, to find an investor to purchase new shares in Willcom, they said, asking not to be identified because the information is not public. Carlyle is also willing to sell part of its stake, the financial sources said. Electronic parts maker Kyocera owns 30 percent of Willcom and KDDI holds 10 percent. Willcom said in November it would need the money by the end of 2015 to develop new PHS technology to better compete against NTT DoCoMo, KDDI and Softbank. In December, it won one of two licenses from the government to provide next-generation wireless Internet access.

Other deals of the day:

* Australia’s takeover regulator said it has received an application from Britain’s BG Group requesting more information from Origin Energy to support Origin’s rejection of BG’s A$13.8 billion ($11.9 billion) takeover bid.

* The fate of a $2.7 billion deal involving Malayan Banking taking over Bank Internasional Indonesia is in Malaysia’s hands and the capital markets watchdog will not make exceptions to existing rules, Indonesia’s regulator said.

* Industrial & Commercial Bank of China, the world’s biggest bank by market value, is buying 100 percent of Russian bank Rosevrobank for between $800 million and $850 million, a newspaper reported.

* Dutch insurer Aegon said it is buying 50 percent of the insurance business of Spain’s Caixa Terrassa for 190 million euros ($281 million) as it seeks newer markets to fuel growth.

* Japanese video game maker Square Enix said it seeks to buy more than half of game developer Tecmo to improve its global competitiveness, in a deal worth at least $102 million.

* British oil and gas services firm Petrofac said it has bought production technology firm Caltec for a maximum 30 million pounds ($54.85 million).

* Hallin Marine Subsea International, which provides subsea services to the oil and gas industry, said it has bought engineering consultant to the energy sector, Prospect Flow Solutions, for up to 4.65 million pounds ($8.50 million).

* Turkish Airlines said its management board had decided to bid for a 49 percent stake in Bosnia’s BH Airlines.

Yahoo’s Gerry Yang may have thought that giving Carl Icahn a board seat would calm the roiling waters that threatened to pull the chief executive under. But a recount of the vote for its board revealed a strong protest vote against five of nine directors, including Yang. The Internet company said revised vote tallies showed 33.7 percent of votes withheld for Yang, the company’s co-founder. That’s more than twice the opposition to his reappointment to the board as in the disputed first count. Yang has been under pressure for months over failed attempts by Microsoft Corp to buy Yahoo and over questions about his leadership. Analysts were split over whether the recount, while potentially emboldening for critics, was a symbolic embarrassment to the leadership or a new threat to its power. Ahead of the Aug. 1 meeting, Yahoo settled a proxy fight with Icahn, giving the billionaire investor and two members of his proposed slate seats on an expanded board of 11 members instead of the previous nine.

Austrian oil and gas group OMV has called off its unsolicited $23 billion bid offer for Hungarian rival MOL, saying European Union restrictions were too tough to make the deal worthwhile. The move ends an acrimonious year-long standoff between the companies that had begun to irritate some investors and weighed on OMV’s share price. The stock rose nearly 8 percent to a three-week high of 45.60 euros on relief a deal was off. “It was a bad strategic move to make an offer, so this should just narrow the situation,” said Erste Bank analyst Jakub Zidon.

And here’s one from the unwanted advances department: Acquisitive miner XstrataLonmin, unveiled a $10 billion takeover bid for the world’s third-biggest platinum producer, to diversify its business from industrial metals such as copper. South Africa-focused Lonmin swiftly rejected the bid as its shares soared 51 percent to a high of 35 pounds on Wednesday, slightly over Xstrata’s planned offer of 33 pounds a share. Lonmin - and this perhaps is no big surprise — rejected the bid as undervaluing the firm.

Other deals of the day:

* Hunting is to sell its Canadian-based oil and gas division Gibson Energy to private equity firms Riverstone Holdings and Carlyle Group for C$1,270 million ($1.22 billion).

* China’s Tongling Nonferrous Metals said it planned to buy a 51 percent stake in a copper smelter based in Inner Mongolia for 450 million yuan ($65.7 million).

* Newly-formed memory chip maker Numonyx announced a big expansion to its tie-up with South Korea’s Hynix Semiconductor, as the former makes a new push into the NAND memory sector.

* Shares in Sony Corp traded higher after the electronics maker said it had agreed to buy Bertelsmann’s 50 percent stake in their Sony BMG music joint venture for around $900 million.

Tech titan Bill Gates appears to be making the transition from head of the biggest software company in the world to a man comfortable taking out the trash. His investment company, BGI, which owns 2.3 percent of Waste Management, is telling the company its unsolicited $6.2 billion bid for Republic Services is ill-advised and that it should walk away. While his investment vehicles have stakes in dozens of companies, they have kept low profiles over the years and Gates has not traditionally been known as an activist investor. But BGI didn’t mince words in its letter to Waste Management’s CEO and board, disclosed on Thursday. “We can only assume your ill-timed and poorly conceived pursuit of Republic is designed to disrupt what you perceive as a competitive threat to your position in the market,” wrote BGI. “An acquisition of Republic will most certainly burden the company with excessive debt, distract your management, result in significant regulatory burdens, and thereby reduce shareholder value,” it said.

Yahoo’s annual investor meeting today will be a magnet for discontent over the company’s failure to reach a merger deal with Microsoft and complaints about the company’s past performance. But any real action to reshape Yahoo’s course is likely to take place only after the meeting, once activist investor Carl Icahn and two outside nominees join an expanded 11-member board as part of a deal with the company to avoid a proxy battle. Far from a showdown over control of Yahoo, the annual meeting has the makings of a noisy media circus where the issue of whether Yahoo should remain independent or not competes with older protests over executive pay and human rights policies. For while the exercise of shareholder democracy will allow investors small and large to vent over what might have been, the outraged speeches are likely to have only symbolic effects since Icahn withdrew his overt challenge to Yahoo’s board. “I am sure that Yahoo management will take a verbal beating,” Jim Friedland, an analyst Cowen & Co, said. “I just don’t think that the annual meeting is where the debate over Yahoo strategy is going to take place.” In a blog post on Thursday, Icahn downplayed the importance of the event, saying he plans to skip the meeting himself.

Spanish solar power company Fotowatio said that General Electric’s Energy Financial Services unit had bought 32 percent of the company for 150 million euros ($233.5 million). Grupo Corporativo Landon — a holding company for the Gallardo family, which owns Barcelona-based pharmaceutical group Almirall — also bought a 17.5 percent stake for 75 million euros, the company added in a statement. Fotowatio said that together with its new partners, it had earmarked 2.5 billion euros to invest by 2012 in photovoltaic and thermosolar plants in Spain, Italy, the United States, and other countries. Currently, the company has four installations, with a total installed capacity of 60 megawatts, which it plans to expand to 800 MW by 2012. Photovoltaic (PV) power has boomed in recent years in Spain due to generous government subsidies, but these will be slashed next year.

Other deals of the day:

* French power giant EDF walked away from a 12 billion pound ($23.8 billion) deal to buy British Energy early on Friday in a dramatic U-turn that could delay Britain’s plans to relaunch its nuclear program.

* Kingfisher, Europe’s biggest home improvements retailer, has agreed to sell its Castorama Italy business to French DIY firm Groupe Adeo for 560 million euros ($871.9 million) in cash.

* Spanish bank Banco Sabadell said its fully owned BIDSA unit has agreed to acquire 4.9 percent of broadcaster Antena 3 from Grupo Rayet for about 85 million euros ($132.3 million).

* French bank BNP Paribas will buy a stake in Anglo-Dutch private bank Insinger de Beaufort, and merge it with its Dutch and UK operations, creating a 10-billion-euro ($15.6 billion) asset manager.

* German investment group Arques Industries has agreed to buy an 80.2 percent stake in Siemens‘ cordless phone unit SHC, closing the chapter on Siemens’ telecoms business.

* Germany’s BMW agreed to sell 72.9 percent of its IT consultancy Cirquent to NTT Data of Japan for an undisclosed price, the luxury carmaker said.

Like a bad soap opera, the Internet storyline is getting more and more convoluted. The tale so far: Microsoft Corp, spurned by Yahoo Inc, is courting Time Warner Inc to allow a union with Internet division AOL. But Yahoo, which turned its back on Microsoft’s $47.5 billion bid, also wants AOL’s hand. These talks have taken on a new urgency ahead of Yahoo’s Aug. 1 shareholders meeting, a source familiar with discussions told Reuters on Tuesday. How either marriage will work is not immediately clear, but any combination will likely redraw the landscape for advertising on the Internet. So why is AOL so attractive? Both Yahoo and Microsoft view it as beneficial to leverage their positions in the Internet marketplace, where search giant Google Inc dominates. Stay tuned.

But good soaps are not only made in America. It seems the Germans are good at them, too. Tires-to-brakes maker Continental rejected Schaeffler Group’s surprise 11.2 billion euro ($17.8 billion) bid, saying only the family owned firm stood to gain from the offer which was too low. Late on Tuesday, the ball-bearing maker announced the terms of its proposed takeover after winning control of more than a third of Continental’s shares through a web of options organized for it discretely by banks. Schaeffler’s bearings are found in London’s landmark Ferris wheel, the London Eye and it also makes high-precision bearing supports for the U.S. space shuttle and the European launch vehicle Ariane, not that that has any bearing on a deal.

Some suitors, however, do get lucky. Mining company Cleveland-Cliffs Inc said on Wednesday it would acquire Alpha Natural Resources Inc for about $10 billion in cash and stock to expand its coal assets. Stockholders of Alpha, an Appalachian coal producer, will receive 0.95 of a Cleveland-Cliffs common share and $22.23 in cash for each of their common shares when the union is completed. Based on closing stock prices on Tuesday, the deal values Alpha at $128.12 per share, a premium of 35 percent, the companies said in a statement. The combined company will be renamed Cliffs Natural Resources and will include nine iron ore facilities and more than 60 coal mines located across North America, South America and Australia.

More deals of the day:

** Shareholders of utilities Suez and Gaz de France are set to approve a long-delayed 100-billion euro ($159.5 billion) merger, creating Europe’s second-largest electricity and gas group.

** The Co-Operative Group has agreed a long-awaited deal to buy Somerfield for 1.57 billion pounds ($3.1 billion) to strengthen its position as Britain’s fifth-biggest food retailer.

** Russian real estate company LSR said it had acquired a property developer in Yekaterinburg in the Urals region for 100 million euros ($159.5 million).

** Bank Hapoalim, one of Israel’s largest banks, said it was in advanced talks to buy at least 75 percent of Russian mid-sized SDM Bank at a value of $142 million.

** Irish healthcare services company United Drug said it had bought U.S. packaging maker Sharp Corporation for $99 million in cash.

** The board of Australian energy firm Roma Petroleum NL said shareholders should accept the revised A$49.4 million ($48.4 million) takeover offer from Queensland Gas Co Ltd.

** Parsvnath Developers Ltd said it will invest 4 billion rupees for a 38 percent stake in the Nanocity project in northern India.

** Shares in SK Telecom, South Korea’s top mobile carrier, fell early after a CNBC report that it was negotiating to buy Sprint Nextel Corp , the No. 3 U.S. mobile service.

** Swiss engineering group ABB said it will acquire U.S. transformer company Kuhlman Electric Corporation from private equity firm Carlyle Group for an undisclosed sum.

** EPIC Energy Ltd said it had acquired Sathian Sun Power Systems, a solar energy products supplier based in the southern state of Tamil Nadu, for an undisclosed sum.

** Airbus said it has agreed to set up a venture with Harbin Aircraft Industry Group (HAIG), the parent of Hafei Aviation Industry Co, to make aircraft components.

The Wall Street Journal leads with a piece saying Microsoft is preparing a new bid for Yahoo’s search business that could bring on board media giants Time Warner and News Corp and effectively lead to Yahoo’s breakup. The talks are preliminary and unlikely to result in a deal with Yahoo, the paper said, and although it all seems whimsical, Yahoo shares jumped more than 6 percent in early trade. Yahoo rejected a $47.5 billion takeover offer by Microsoft, and earlier this week questioned whether the software maker was ever serious about a full-scale merger. Carl Icahn, who is running a slate of directors to replace Yahoo’s board and has called for the removal of Chief Executive Jerry Yang, has met with Microsoft, which is encouraging him to press his proxy contest as a way to keep pressure on Yahoo to enter into a deal that would lift its share price, the paper said, citing people familiar with the matter.

British events organizer and publisher Informa said it was considering a 2.15 billion pound ($4.3 billion) bid approach from a consortium of private equity firms, sending its shares 10 percent higher. Informa said in a statement that Providence Equity, The Carlyle Group and Hellman & Friedman had made a bid proposal of 506 pence a share on June 26. “Discussions continue to be at an early stage and there can be no certainty that an offer will be made,” it said. When news emerged last month that the equity firms were working on a bid for the media company, the shares showed only modest gains as analysts questioned whether a deal would succeed in the current tight credit markets.

The markets took down another deal yesterday. Blaming grim market conditions Blockbuster abandoned its $1.3 billion offer to buy electronics retailer Circuit City. Shares of the video rental chain jumped more than 7 percent in extended trade after the news while Circuit City’s shares fell 1.6 percent, after declining nearly 12 percent at Tuesday’s close — hitting their lowest point in two decades. Speculation that a potential deal with Blockbuster would not happen gained ground after Circuit City posted a wider quarterly loss and cut its dividend in June.

France Telecom said it was seeking acquisitions that would be smaller than its failed $40 billion bid for TeliaSonera but declined to comment on a possible cash return to shareholders. France Telecom has repeatedly said it is aiming to make acquisitions in emerging markets in Africa and Asia. After becoming a majority shareholder in Kenya Telecom, the French operator is eyeing stakes in Ghana Telecom, Algerie Telecom and Vietnam’s Mobifone. “The matter is closed and definitely closed,” France Telecom Chief Executive Didier Lombard told a telecoms conference organized by Les Echos newspaper, referring to its failed bid for Nordic operator TeliaSonera. “We will make more modest things in the coming months,” he said.

More deals of the day:

* Biotechnology firm Maxygen said a unit of Germany’s Bayer AG has agreed to buy its hemophilia program assets in a deal valued at $120 million, including a potential milestone payment of $30 million.

* Glenmark Pharmaceuticals has bought seven drug brands in Poland from Iceland’s Actavis and its Polish affiliate Biovena, expanding the Indian firm’s presence in Europe.

* British Airways has agreed to buy small French business airline l’Avion for 68 million euros ($107.3 million) and it will become part of its new OpenSkies unit, they said in a joint statement.

* Auto parts maker Amtek Auto is in preliminary talks to buy German light metal castings maker KSM Castings to consolidate its business in the European market, a source close to the development told Reuters.

* Jiuquan Iron and Steel Group, China’s No. 16 steelmaker, plans to inject assets worth 30 billion yuan ($4.38 billion) into a joint venture with a Kazakhstan iron miner, Jiugang’s listed unit said.

* Diversified manufacturer Johnson Controls said it would form a joint venture to acquire the interior products assets of bankrupt auto parts maker Plastech Engineered Products.

* Chesapeake Energy and Plains Exploration & Production said they have entered into a joint venture in north Louisiana and east Texas.

* Microsoft said it had agreed to buy Powerset, a start-up that is working on a new class of Web search that relies on insights from linguistics rather than simple keyword strings.

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.

Japan’s Sumitomo Mitsui Financial Group may invest about $926 million in British bank Barclays, people familiar with the matter told Reuters, the latest in a string of subprime-hit Western lenders increasingly turning to Asia for funding. Japan’s third-largest bank is also considering a business alliance in Asia with Barclays, which is expected to raise about $8 billion from sovereign wealth funds and other investors and then offer shareholders the right to buy on the same terms. If Sumitomo Mitsui opts to invest it would give the Japanese bank a stake of just over 2 percent. Up to five outside investors are also expected to participate, and backers may include existing Singapore-based sovereign wealth fund Temasek and China Development Bank, plus the Qatar Investment Authority.

Steve Ballmer insisted Microsoft will not seek to make a spate of other Internet acquisitions (Facebook, we’re looking at you) in the wake of its failed bid for Yahoo, according to the Financial Times. “People don’t understand what they’re talking about,” Ballmer said. “At the end of the day, this is about the ad platform. This is not about just any one of the applications.” Meanwhile, over at Yahoo, a spate of executives are reported running for the hills, just as the company is trying to justify its decision to go it alone and to repel Carl Icahn’s proxy fight. Among the departed: Flickr co-creator Stuart Butterfield, whose bizarrely hilarious resignation letter could best be summed up as: “There Will Be Tin.”

The fate of the world’s largest leveraged buyout hangs in the balance ahead of Friday afternoon’s decision by the Supreme Court of Canada on whether BCE treated its bondholders unfairly in agreeing to a $34.8 billion ($34.5 billion) takeover. Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan, with U.S.-based private equity firms Providence Equity Partners, Madison Dearborn Partners and Merrill Lynch Global Private Equity, are offering C$42.75 a share to take BCE, parent of Bell Canada, private.

More Deals of the Day:

** France Telecom declined to comment on a report in French paper Les Echos that it might be ready to make new concessions to improve its $41 billion cash-and-share offer for rival TeliaSonera.

** Malaysia’s second-largest lender, CIMB Bank, has agreed to buy a 42 percent stake in Thailand’s BankThai for about 5.9 billion baht ($177 million), the Bank of Thailand said on Friday.

** France’s leading sugar producer Tereos abandoned plans on Friday to bid for the sugar business of Danish food group Danisco, saying it would instead look for alternative acquisitions.

** Private equity firm Bain Capital will launch a $445 million bid to buy out Japan’s D&M Holdings Inc, the maker of Denon audio equipment, from U.S. buyout firm Ripplewood and the other shareholders.

** Australian-listed miner Indophil Resources NL said it had received a A$488 million ($465 million) bid that trumped a hostile offer from Xstrata Plc, and recommended shareholders take it.

** South Korean food group Dongwon said it was in talks to buy the StarKist seafood business from Del Monte Foods Co, sending shares of its key units higher.

** AviChina Industry & Technology Co Ltd said its controlling shareholder, China Aviation Industry Corporation II, was proposed to merge with China Aviation Industry Corporation I.

** Hynix Semiconductor Inc, the world’s No. 2 memory chip maker, said it would buy a 2 percent stake in Taiwan-based chip design house Phison Electronics Corp.

** Investment firm Guiness Peat Group Ltd said it had reached its target 35 percent stake in New Zealand insurance and fund management company Tower Ltd.

** Ithaca Energy Inc said it has received an unsolicited non-binding offer from Endeavour International Corp. The offer consists cash and shares at an indicative price of $3.25 per Ithaca share, it said.

** Norwegian offshore driller Prosafe Production sold its 30.1 percent stake in peer Teekay Petrojarl to U.S.-listed shipping group Teekay Corp for $258 million.

** Vienna’s bourse submitted the highest bid for a majority stake in Slovenia’s stock exchange, outbidding Greek bourse operator Hellenic Exchanges, the Greek bourse said on Friday. In a bourse filing, Hellenic Exchanges said its binding offer for Slovenia’s stock exchange was not the highest.

** The European Commission restarted on Friday its review of plans by Itema to buy specialised equipment used in textile production from Barco of Belgium.

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)

Oprah, meet Howard. Reports in the Washington Post and The Wall Street Journal say the head of the FCC will support the merger of XM, home to Ms. Winfrey, and Sirius,  where Mr. Stern holds court, removing the last regulatory hurdle to the long-awaited merger of the country’s only two satellite radio operators. Aides to the FCC chief said he decided to give his support after the companies agreed last week to concessions intended to prevent the new company from raising prices or stifling competition among radio makers, the Post reported.  As of last week there was still some static coming from members of Congress, but with the FCC backing the deal it’s unclear how they will make themselves heard.

In his first public comment on the end of the Yahoo/Microsoft merger talks, billionare financier Carl Icahn, said on Sunday the subsequent deal Yahoo forged with Google “might have some merit.” He had previously said a Google deal should be considered a secondary alternative to the Microsoft offer. “While the Google deal is not the same as an offer of $34.375 per share for Yahoo, I am continuing to study it,” Icahn told Reuters. Icahn declined to comment on whether he would continue to press his proxy battle to replace the board of Yahoo.

Belgian brewer InBev warned U.S. rival Anheuser-Busch that it should fully explore its $46 billion takeover offer before doing a deal with Mexico’s Modelo. In a letter that appeared to be aimed at Anheuser-Busch shareholders, InBev suggested that doing a deal with Modelo could impact the value of its $65-a-share takeover offer. Inbev’s Chief Executive Carlos Brito wrote to Anheuser-Busch’s CEO August Busch IV that he was committed to a “friendly combination,” and “we would expect that prior to proceeding with any alternative transaction, especially if your shareholders will not be given the opportunity to vote on it, you would first fully explore our offer and the potential adverse consequences any such transaction could have on the ability of your shareholders to receive our premium offer.”

Other deals of the day:

* French market watchdog AMF has approved the merger document of Gaz de France and Suez, removing one of the last hurdles to the utilities’ long-delayed 100 billion euro ($153.3 billion) merger.

* Shareholders in Australian miner Zinifex approved a A$4.3 billion ($4.0 billion) takeover by fellow miner Oxiana, creating Australia’s third-largest diversified mining group. The new company said it would look at any assets BHP Billiton may need to sell to satisfy anti-trust regulators in its bid to acquire Rio Tinto

* Rio Tinto dismissed concerns that it could be barred from digging a huge iron ore mine in Africa, as it builds its defense against a $180 billion bid from bigger rival BHP Billiton.

* De La Rue, the world’s largest banknote printing company, has agreed to sell its Cash Systems business to private equity firm Carlyle Group for 360 million pounds ($700 million) in cash.

* Australian oil firm Roc Oil offered to buy Anzon Australia in a deal valuing Anzon at about A$612 million ($572 million), after agreeing to acquire UK-listed Anzon Energy.

* Swiss machine maker Schweiter Technologies said it is selling its Satisloh Holding unit to French eyeglass maker Essilor International for 340 million euros ($521.3 million) in cash, boosting its shares.

* ProSiebenSat.1 has agreed to sell its Scandinavian pay-TV group to Sweden’s TV4 in a deal with an enterprise value of 320 million euros ($492 million) that will help it cut debt, lifting its shares.

* Vodka label Stolichnaya is to be put up for sale after Russian company SPI asked Lehman Brothers to find a buyer, a source familiar with the matter told Reuters.

* Credit Suisse said that it has won approval from regulators to set up a securities joint venture in China, which will allow it to underwrite domestic stock and bond offerings in the country.

* Enmax Corp said that it extended the deadline for the takeover of junior natural gas producer Cordero Energy as the two sides agreed to sweeten the deal with a special dividend.

* Cogeco Cable plans to acquire all the shares of city-owned Toronto Hydro Telecom for C$200 million ($194 million), the cable company said.

* Chip equipment maker Applied Materials said it remained interested in buying some businesses of Dutch rival ASM International and wants to enter discussions on possible transactions.

* ArcelorMittal, the world’s largest steelmaker, bought a 11.31 percent stake in the Turkish steel company Erdemir, bringing its total ownership to 24.9 percent and sending Erdemir shares sharply higher.

* Swedish engineering group Sandvik agreed to buy a 49 percent of U.S. tool maker Precorp for an undisclosed sum.

* Gemini Communication said it has acquired 51 percent stake in Chennai’s Veeras Infotek in a deal valued at 70 million rupees.

* Shares in Banco Popular fell more than 3 percent after Mexican telecoms company Axtel denied reports that it or its chief executive could buy a stake in the Spanish bank.

* French catering and services company Sodexo said it had bought a 90 percent stake worth 23 million euros ($35.3 million) in Yachts de Paris, which operates cruises on the river Seine in Paris.

* The Philippines rebuffed an offer to sell its 40 percent stake in oil refiner Petron Corp to investment fund Ashmore Group for around $550 million, saying it wanted a higher price.

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.