DealZone

Royal Dutch Shell and PetroChina have secured Arrow Energy’s coal-seam gas assets for $3.1 bln after sweetening their offers for the business.  The fresh bid was pitched at a 35 percent premium to Arrow’s share price before the first offer was announced, highlighting burgeoning interest in the coal-seam gas industry.

The former chief exexcutive of AIG is to sell most of his stock in the U.S. insurance giant to a unit of Swiss banks UBS. The deal for the 10 million shares, at about a 20 percent discount to Friday’s closing price, will earn Maurice “Hank” Greenberg $278.2 m.

Private equity firms are interested in acquiring and merging two German department store chains. U.S. firms are interested in acquiring Metro’s Kaufhof and Arcandor’s Karstadt chains, people familiar with the matter said.

For more deals news from Reuters, click here.

And in other media:

Richard Branson’s Virgin Money has lined up financing from Abu Dhabi Sovereign Wealth Funds and buyout house Blackstone needed to buy 320 bank branches from Royal Bank of Scotland, the Daily Express reports. Other suitors for the estate include Spain’s Santander and National Australia Bank.

Time Warner is considering making a second-round bid of up to $1.5 billion for Hollywood studio Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, a source tells us. The March 19 deadline for the bids for MGM — whose film library includes the James Bond and Pink Panther franchises — may well be extended.

Shares in Arrow Energy have been suspended — the suspicion is that Royal Dutch Shell and Petrochina will sweeten their joint $3 billion offer for the Australian gas producer. Read the Reuters story here.

And as I am writing this, London-listed Gulfsands Petroleum is saying that it has rejected a preliminary takeover approach. The suitor is Indian, it has also said, but it’s not ONGC. To be continued.

British Petroleum is bidding on a package of Devon Energy assets that the US energy company put up for sale late last year, sources familiar with the matter told Reuters. The company is looking at Devon’s position offshore Brazil, as well as Gulf of Mexico and Canadian assets, one source said. There could be around six other bidders as well as the British oil major. Read the story here.

And in news reported by other media on Thursday:

Dubai World will present its first concrete proposals to local banks on Thursday on restructuring $22 billion of debt, The National newspaper reported, citing unnamed sources. The state-owned conglomerate has requested meetings with Emirates NBD and Abu Dhabi Commercial Bank to present its proposals.

Japan Airlines will keep its partnership with American Airlines, due to concerns that forging ties with rival suitor Delta Air Lines would make it difficult to achieve a quick turnaround, a source tells Reuters. Delta and American have been courting JAL, now bankrupt, for months, looking to gain access to its vast network in Asia.

British pay-TV group BSkyB sold a 10.4 percent stake in commercial broadcaster ITV, finally bringing an end to a long-running legal battle. BskyB had been ordered to cut its stake to below 7.5 percent in 2008. Since then, it has been through a series of appeals, all of which it lost.

For these stories, and all other Reuters news on deals, click here.

And for a selection of news in rival media:

The government of Ghana has blocked the estimated $4 billion sale of a stake in its Jubilee oil field, foiling months of talks between potential buyer Exxon Mobil Corp and the stake’s owner, Kosmos Energy LLC, the Wall Street Journal says.

Monday’s highlights:

London-based oil explorer Tullow Oil (TLW.L) exercises a right to buy Ugandan oil fields which its partner in the fields, Heritage Oil (HOIL.L), previously agreed to sell to Italy’s Eni (ENI.MI) for $1.5 billion.

Some of Cadbury’s (CBRY.L) biggest shareholders, led by Legal & General, continued to reject Kraft Foods’ 10.5 billion pound ($17.2 billion) bid and will look for an increased offer.

Brazil’s Camargo Correa Group reiterates its interest in cement maker Cimpor and says it is pondering its options after the Portuguese stock market regulator turned down its merger proposal.