It is said that all that glitters is not gold. Keep that in mind when considering the bidding war heating up the nuclear power business. France’s EDF has offered $6.5 billion for half of Constellation Energy Group’s nuclear business and some other assets, trumping Warren Buffett’s bid of $4.7 billion for all of Constellation.
 
If plummeting demand for everything from new cars to tin foil could fell BHP’s monster bid for Rio Tinto, why wouldn’t it weigh on demand for energy? While nuclear power has regained some favor as a cheap, relatively clean alternative to nasty fossil fuels, is it really safe to expect consumers to ramp up electric heat this winter, and air conditioning next summer, when they are worried about losing their jobs?
 
And today brings more evidence that the lengthy, torturous bid process BHP endured before walking away from Rio Tinto may have saved it from dealing with a disastrous downturn in demand. Freeport McMoran, which bought Phelps Dodge for $26 billion two years ago, slashed its dividend this morning after raising it only four months ago.  
 
Constellation shares rose nearly 20 percent to over $30 this morning, but that is still well below the value of the EDF bid — $52 a share. Perhaps investors aren’t quite so warm and fuzzy toward nukes after all.

* Australia said it is open to a $5.9 billion merger between Qantas Airways and British Airways as long as it’s not a takeover, sending the Australian carrier’s shares up nearly 10 percent.

* A Japanese unit of Prudential Financial plans to bid for two Japanese life insurers put up for sale by American International Group, people familiar with the matter said.

* Investment funds of Wall Street banks Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley and private equity giant Bain Capital plan to invest a combined at least $30 million into a Chinese movie distributor soon, top boss of the distributor Poly Bona told Reuters.

* The Irish government said it would consider Ryanair’s new offer to buy rival airline Aer Lingus, in which the state holds a 25 percent stake, but it will be careful to preserve competition.

* Debt-laden Telecom Italia, Europe’s fifth-biggest telecoms provider, will shed assets worth up to $3.82 billion and cut another 5 percent of its workforce in a bid to slash borrowings and trim costs amid a weak economy.

* Two investors in Irish Continental Group said they were in talks about a possible offer for the company, owner of Irish Ferries, reopening a bidding war between competing shareholders with blocking stakes.

* Georgia has sold the remaining 49 percent of its Black Sea port of Poti to RAK Investment Authority of the United Arab Emirates for $65 million, its deputy minister Vakhtang Lezhava told Reuters.

* Government-owned Nakheel Properties, developer of Dubai’s palm-shaped islands, is not in discussions over the sale of company and has no immediate plans to cut more jobs, the chief executive told Reuters.

* Swedish oil and gas group Lundin Petroleum has agreed to sell its 9.2 percent stake in Revus Energy to Germany’s Wintershall, helping to clear the way for Wintershall’s takeover of Revus.

(Reuters photo: Vincent Kessler)

A day after mining giant BHP Billiton dropped its bid for rival Rio Tinto, Rio said it was confident it could sell assets worth billions of dollars. Analysts aren’t convinced.

As the credit crisis dries up available funds, some companies are backing away from buying anything.

“The environment over the next six to 12 months is not going to be a good environment for selling assets,” said FW Holst analyst Rob Craigie.

Despite the skeptics, Rio Chairman Paul Skinner, speaking at a scheduled business breakfast, said it would make asset sales in the next few months.

“We now move on. We have a very strong company,” Skinner told reporters. “We are confident with our financial position. We have other ways of managing our debt.”

Assets on the block include a major packaging business, aluminum products, its U.S. coal business, an Australian copper mine and its U.S. Sweetwater uranium mine.

(Note from Editor: Given the Thanksgiving Day holiday this week, today’s posting will be the last for this week. Expect us back as usual on Monday.)

More Deals of the Day:

** Goldman Sachs has broken off talks with Panasonic Corp for now on selling its stake in Sanyo Electric after the electronics maker made an offer below Sanyo’s current stock price.

** India’s Sun Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd said its unit had acquired 100 percent of U.S.-based narcotic producer and importer Chattem Chemicals Inc for an undisclosed sum.

** QBE Insurance Group Ltd, Australia’s top insurer by premium income, will buy U.S.-based underwriting agency ZC Sterling Corp for $575 million, part funded by a $1.3 billion equity raising, and has upped its 2008 revenue growth target.

** Bahrain-based retail lender Bank of Bahrain and Kuwait is considering merging its newly-launched Islamic bank with peer Shamil Bank or another bank, its chief executive said in remarks published in Al Watan newspaper.

** U.S. private equity group KKR is planning a bid for Abengoa’s Nasdaq-listed technology unit Telvent GIT, Expansion reported citing sources familiar with the deal.

** Trading in shares of Woolworths Group Plc, the struggling sweets-to-DVDs retailer, were suspended, while talks continued to save the business from collapse. The 99-year-old group confirmed it remains in talks regarding the potential sale of its 800-store retail business to restructuring specialist Hilco UK for a nominal sum.

** Mobile telecoms equipment provider Ericsson and chipmaker STMicroelectronics won permission from EU competition authorities to combine their wireless chip and software businesses.

** Hungary’s OTP has been looking at possible foreign acquisitions in recent months but is not likely to make any purchases until the global financial crisis is over, Chief Financial Officer Laszlo Urban said.

** Spain will fight to keep oil major Repsol YPF Spanish and independent in the face of possible stakebuilding from Russia’s LUKOIL, Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero said.

** Colonial has granted buy options on its 15.45 percent stake in Spanish builder FCC and its 33 percent of French unit SFL to its creditor banks, the property developer said.

** Porsche SE will not pay “ridiculous” prices for VW shares amid recessionary conditions, it said, backing away from its previous target to take majority control of Europe’s biggest carmaker by the end of the year.

BHP announced an all-share offer valuing Rio at about $193 billion last November, as mining boomed worldwide. BHP said the risk of taking on Rio’s much heavier debts, and the low prices it could expect from asset sales forced on it by regulators, were among the factors behind the decision to abandon the bid.

The decision could have far-reaching consequences for consolidation in the industry, writes Reuters’ John Kemp.

“For more than two decades, merger policy in the EU and around the world has become progressively more permissive, as regulators cited new theories of market “contestability” to permit accumulation of market shares that would have been blocked had they been proposed in the 1960s and 1970s.

But the BHP-Rio deal proved a step too far. The EU’s decision to insist on significant asset disposals is consistent with other signs that competition policy is toughening in the EU and around the globe,” Kemp says.

BHP’s backtracking also clearly illustrates how times have changed in a very short span as the credit crisis took hold and crippled global financial markets.

“The market has changed dramatically in the last six months. What made sense six months ago doesn’t make sense now. People talked about synergies in iron ore. Those synergies are still there, but nobody is prepared to pay for them,” said Michael Komesaroff, manageing director at Urandaline Investments.

But one company’s pain is another’s gain, as the old saying kinda goes. And the winner here may be the world’s steelmakers, said Kim Gyun-Jung, analyst at Samsung Securities in Seoul.

“This means the end of a long rally in iron ore prices and steelmakers will now have more bargaining power in annual term negotiations, because they are reducing iron ore purchases as well as steel production in the face of sharply falling demand,” Kim said.

Other Deals of the Day:

** Malaysia’s MISC Bhd, the world’s largest carrier of liquefied natural gas, scrapped a $882 million takeover bid for oil services firm Ramunia Holdings Bhd, saying its due diligence findings were unsatisfactory.

** Chinese state-owned Citic Group and its subsidiary paid 3.26 billion yuan ($477.3 million) to buy a 49 percent stake in metals smelter Baiyin Nonferrous Metals from the provincial government of Gansu, a senior executive at Baiyin said.

** Spain’s state credit institute gave 350 million euros ($440.8 million) to builder Sacyr in 2006 to help fund its purchase of a stake in Repsol, El Mundo reported, without citing its sources.

** Roche Holding AG has agreed to buy biotech company Memory Pharmaceuticals Corp for about $50 million in cash, the Swiss drugmaker said.

** Munich Re, the world’s biggest reinsurer, said its direct insurance arm is looking to enter new markets in Asia and that it is interested in parts of American International Group’s Asian life insurance business.

** Chinese heavy machinery maker Changsha Zoomlion Industry Science and Technology Development had talks on possible asset purchases in the United States, Jianguo Zhang, senior president, told Reuters on the sidelines of an industry event.

** Randstad, the world’s second-largest employment agency, is paying 12.3 million euros ($15.8 million) for a 10 percent stake in FujiStaff Holdings Inc to give it a foothold in Japan.

** Russian billionaire Oleg Deripaska is in talks to sell control of Bank Soyuz to a lender founded by gas giant Gazprom, Russian newspapers reported, citing unnamed sources.

** A joint venture of five Indian state-run firms is looking to take stakes in coal mines in Australia, the chief of one of the firms said.

The yo-yo that is Lehman Brothers’ stock took another spill before the market opened on Monday, after a top South Korean regulator threw cold water on the idea of a state bank buying the battle-scarred Wall Street warrior. Financial Services Commission Chairman Jun Kwang-woo told reporters Korea Development Bank (KDB) should be a “cheerleader” and let local private banks take the lead in any such purchase. KDB’s interest lit a rocket under Lehman’s shares on Friday. When asked about the status of KDB’s possible interest in Lehman Jun said: “That would be an international marriage. Would you get married just after one or two blind dates?” A couple of blind dates might be a step up from the shot-gun buyouts that South Korea’s banks faced after the Asia crisis.

Canada’s Precision Drilling Trust will buy U.S. driller Grey Wolf for $2 billion in cash and stock, creating one of the largest North American oil and gas rig operators. The announcement comes a month after Grey Wolf shareholders voted down a proposed purchase of well-servicing company Basic Energy Services. Precision Drilling, Canada’s largest oil and gas driller, first made an unsolicited purchase offer for Grey Wolf in June. News that a deal had been struck emerged on Sunday. Based on financial results through June, the combined companies will have annual revenue of $1.8 billion.

Germany’s Commerzbank could buy insurer Allianz’s Dresdner Bank possibly by the end of this month, according to a source familiar with the situation at the bank. German weekly Welt am Sonntag said an agreement between the two was possible within the coming week. The two companies had agreed on the basic principles of the transaction, according to the paper, which said Commerzbank would buy Dresdner for slightly more than 9 billion euros ($13.38 billion) and Allianz would vouch for writedowns on the balance sheet of Dresdner of up to 1 billion euros. The sums were still being negotiated. Allianz would have a stake of slightly less than 30 percent in the merged bank, the report also said.

Australia has approved Chinese aluminum giant Chinalco’s recent purchase of a minority stake in Anglo-Australian miner Rio Tinto, but warned the Chinese firm against buying more shares without prior approval. State-owned Aluminium Corp of China (Chinalco), backed by U.S. peer Alcoa, began amassing shares this year with the aim of taking up to 14.9 percent of Rio, the target of a $127 billion takeover bid from rival BHP Billiton. Treasurer Wayne Swan said Chinalco had already vowed not to raise its stake above 14.99 percent without receiving fresh government approval and, secondly, not to seek to appoint a director to Rio Tinto’s board. Rio Tinto is at the center of a tug-of-war that reflects China’s anxiety over BHP Billiton’s proposed all-share bid for Rio, which would create a titan unrivaled in its degree of control over a wide range of industrial commodities. Rio is a major aluminum producer and both it and BHP are global suppliers of copper, but China’s biggest concern about the takeover bid surrounds iron ore, which is used in steel-making.

Other deals of the day:

* Japanese brewer Kirin Holdings is expanding its food business in Australia through unit National Foods’ $780 million acquisition of Dairy Farmers, helping it diversify away from a shrinking domestic beer market as Japan’s population ages.

* Lufthansa has formally announced its interest in acquiring a stake on offer in Austrian Airlines, a spokesman for the German carrier said. OeIAG is offering its 43 percent share in Austrian, worth around 157 million euros ($233.4 million), but said the size of the stake sold would depend on preserving an Austrian group of core shareholders owning 25 percent between them.

* Irish food group Glanbia said it would spend $315 million to buy Optimum Nutrition Inc, a U.S. maker of supplements for body builders, which will use by-products of its cheese manufacturing.

* Singapore Telecommunications said it has bought a 60 percent stake in Singapore Computer Systems for S$140 million ($99 million) as it seeks to boost its IT business.

* Norwegian shipping group DOF ASA said that uncertainty in the financial market had forced it to re-evaluate a planned buyout of offshore services group DOF Subsea.

* MLP Chief Executive Uwe Schroeder-Wildberg was quoted by Swiss finance newspaper Cash Daily as saying he believes Swiss Life’s plan to take over the German financial adviser would fail.

August is traditionally a quiet month for M&A, as bankers head out to the Hamptons or further afield. This year could prove especially quiet as people make the most of the slow dealflow — particularly on the private equity side — to take longer than usual breaks.

But even as Wall Street slows down for the summer, a few auctions are showing signs of life. The effort to sell Irish drugmaker Elan’s drug delivery unit is one sale that is hotter than most, according to bankers. First round bids went in last week and a number of U.S. private equity names are said to be keen on the asset, which could fetch $1.3 billion to $1.4 billion.

Also still in play through the dog days of summer are Reed Elsevier’s Reed Business Information unit, with first round bids due this week expected to range from $2 billion to $2.5 billion, and Rio Tinto’s U.S. coal assets.

With the prospect of sharply decreased bonuses, summer trips may be a little less posh this year. Have you downgraded from the Hamptons or made other cost-cutting vacation plans? Tell us in comments.

In the end, he wasn’t in some sub-Saharan refuge, an Asian island paradise or a secluded European spa … fugitive former hedge fund manager Samuel Israel III (pictured right) was holed up in a mobile home (pictured below). Israel handed himself over to authorities in Massachusetts to start his 20-year prison sentence after having faked his suicide to avoid doing time. Israel, who co-founded Connecticut hedge fund Bayou Group, in 2005 pleaded guilty to a scheme to fabricate returns and cheat investors out of $450 million. He was sentenced in April. Police said his mother convinced him to turn himself over to police. If he was hoping for another shot at fleedom, he can forget about it. “There is not the slightest possibility that I or any other judge would release you at this point,” Judge Michael Ponsor told Israel before turning him over to U.S. Marshals.

Landmark Communications could announce the sale of the Weather Channel to a group made up of NBC Universal, Blackstone and Bain Capital in the next day or two, sources briefed on the matter said. The final price on the cable network, which produces national, regional and local weather-related programs, is expected to be between $3 billion and $3.5 billion, and likely at the higher end of that range, the sources said. The parties have been negotiating directly with Landmark since Time Warner withdrew its bid two weeks ago. There is always a small chance things could fall apart or slow down at the last minute, but absent any such unforeseen problems, the deal should be announced in the next couple days, one of the people said.

BHP Billiton said U.S. antitrust authorities have cleared its unsolicited $170 billion bid for rival miner Rio Tinto. The company’s announcement said the clearance satisfied part of U.S. antitrust law requirements. U.S. law gives antitrust authorities the right to re-open their investigation if new information comes to light before the transaction closes, experts say. However in reality, the United States has now given full clearance to the deal, not that U.S. opposition is a major issue for the mega merger. Problems are more likely to be raised in Asia and Europe.

British market research company Taylor Nelson Sofres rejected an improved approach worth 1.08 billion pounds ($2.14 billion) from WPP, saying it still preferred its merger with German peer GfK. WPP’s latest proposal substantially undervalued the company, said TNS, which had previously opened its books to WPP after rejecting previous approaches. TNS is the world’s third-biggest market research company, with clients such as Procter & Gamble and Unilever, while GfK is the world’s fifth-biggest and counts Panasonic and Henkel among its customers. A completed tie-up would step up pressure on market leader AC Nielsen in an industry which has become increasingly important as companies hunt for more information on their clients and services. Analysts have said from the start that WPP, which would merge TNS with its Kantar business, could disrupt the TNS-GfK deal, bidding up the price.

Storied New York public relations advisor Kekst & Co sold out to French advertising and communications company Publicis Groupe SA for an undisclosed sum. Kekst, known for advising on high profile financial takeovers, was founded in 1970 by its current chief executive, Gershon Kekst, 73, and employs about 70 people. The company, based on Madison Avenue, New York, has advised on more mergers and acquisitions than any other public relations agency over the last two decades, according to data from Corporate Control Alert. One industry insider who asked not to be identified, but is not involved with the deal, speculated that the transaction could be worth around $150 million. The figure assumes estimated profits of $20 million and an estimated deal multiple of 6 or 7 times, plus a premium, that person said.

Other deals of the day:

* U.S. private equity house Lone Star could offer shares in Korea Exchange Bank in a block sale if the pending $6.3 billion deal to sell control of KEB to HSBC falters, KEB chief executive said.

* Australian bank Macquarie has applied to Chinese regulators to buy a nearly 20 percent stake in a trust company, in order to expand its corporate banking and wealth management services in China, sources with direct knowledge of the deal said.

* Huawei Technologies, China’s largest mobile phone equipment maker, has narrowed the field of bidders for a stake in its mobile devices unit — reported to be worth more than $2 billion — to five private equity companies, sources said.

* Telecommunications firm Pacnet said it had signed a joint venture with China-based firm Zhong Ren Telecom, to offer Internet protocol services to Chinese companies and expand its presence in the country.

* International Business Machines said it has bought privately held software maker Platform Solutions Inc and the two companies have dropped their legal complaints against each other.

* Northstar Neuroscience said it received an unsolicited offer from Tang Capital Partners to buy the company for $2.25 per share.

* Hedge fund SAC Capital reported that it had cut its stake in Take-Two Interactive Software to 4.4 percent from 5.3 percent.

You can’t tell the telecom mergers without a scorecard: France Telecom proposed a $41 billion bid for TeliaSonera to create the world’s third-largest broadband operator and fourth-biggest mobile company, but the Nordic company rejected the offer. Britain’s Vodafone said its U.S.-based Verizon Wireless venture with Verizon is in advanced talks to buy U.S. rural mobile service provider Alltel, potentially making it the top U.S. wireless carrier ahead of AT&T. Deutsche Telekom clinched a deal last month with the Greek government that gives it a 25 percent stake in operator OTE, and India’s Reliance Communications and South Africa’s MTN are also close to a tie-up. What is the deal? “In the current context of consolidation, it appears unavoidable to have critical mass,” said France Telecom Chief Executive Didier Lombard.

Verizon’s move in particular was a surprise as it came only seven months after Alltel was loaded up with debt in a private-equity takeover by TPG Capital and Goldman Sachs’ GS Capital Partners. The deal would value Alltel at eight times its earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortization, compared with its November sale to private equity firms for about nine times EBITDA, the source said. While TPG and Goldman don’t appear to have made much money, it doesn’t seem they’ve lost much either. It’s hard to imagine they planned to flip it after 6 months, but perhaps for private equity these days, getting out free is good enough.

BHP Billiton, the world’s top miner, said it sees no need to sell assets to win regulatory approval for its $170 billion proposed takeover of rival Rio Tinto, but did not rule out that it might have to. Chief Executive Marius Kloppers also said his company had not held talks with any Chinese entity about buying a stake in BHP. If it had, he added, it would have had to disclose the discussions to the market. BHP will send its takeover offer to Rio shareholders only after it has been cleared by anti-trust regulators in Europe, Australia, the United States, Canada and South Africa, expected later this year. It filed its application to the European Commission, which it considers one of the three key regulators on the bid, on May 30. The EC will say by July 4 whether it will approve the deal, open an in-depth investigation, or permit a short extension.

Other deals of the day:

* Chinese metals trader Sinosteel said it has increased its voting stake in Midwest to 33.82 percent, from 28.37 percent the previous day, as it seeks to take over the Australian iron ore prospector. It has also taken legal steps to stop its rivals buying any more shares in the Australian iron ore prospector.

* Dutch navigation device maker TomTom declared its 2.9 billion euro ($4.5 billion) offer for digital map supplier Tele Atlas unconditional and announced a management reshuffle.

* Pension Corporation, the specialist pension fund manager, has agreed a 451 million pound ($879 million) buyout that will secure the benefits of the pension plan of steel products group Delta, it said.

* French drugmaker Ipsen is to buy the rest of its U.S. partner Tercica for about $404 million and has struck two other deals in a bid to build a $1 billion-a-year U.S. business by 2020.

* Mahindra & Mahindra, India’s top utility vehicle maker, said it had signed an agreement to acquire Italy’s Engines Engineering for an undisclosed sum.

* Indian software firm Tanla Solutions said its Singapore unit will acquire Finland-based mobile payment services firm Openbit in an all-cash deal, valued at $18.6 million.

* Latin American silver and gold miner Hochschild Mining bought 100 percent of the San Felipe project in Mexico for $51.5 million in cash, the firm said.

Ford got a boost from billionaire investor Kerk Kerkorian’s Tracinda, which waived a condition requiring it to bail on its tender offer for Ford shares at $8.50 if the stock fell by 10 percent or more from the close of trade on May 8^th, when the stock was at $8.20 per share. It closed at $6.71 on Thursday, but was up about 2 and a half percent before the market opened Friday. Tracinda said it “continues to believe in Ford’s management and turnaround efforts and remains committed to its offer,” which expires at on June 9. Tracinda already has 100 million shares of Ford, and if it shied away from the tender offer, the value of its existing investment would suffer. That’s not to say it doesn’t believe in management, but the ring of the endorsement is perhaps a little less pure.

BHP Billiton’s $180 billion bid for Rio Tinto appears to be yet another firmly inconclusive step closer to reality. The world’s biggest miner, in hot pursuit of unwilling Rio since last fall, has formally filed with the European Commission for takeover clearance. The European Union’s executive arm and antitrust regulator has set a deadline for consideration of July 4. By then, it must approve, extend (briefly) or launch an investigation into the merger bid. Rio spurned BHP’s all-share offer shortly after BHP was required to put up or shut up by British regulators on Feb. 6. The filing was delayed for months during pre-filing talks with the European Commission. Analysts say the most contentious area is likely to be iron ore, since the combined firm would control around a third of seaborne trade in the raw material for making steel.

Casino and racetrack operator Penn National said it was unlikely to receive necessary regulatory approvals before an upcoming merger deadline for its acquisition by a group led by Fortress Investment. Fortress and Centerbridge Partners agreed in June 2007 to buy Penn National for $67 a share, or $6.1 billion. In March, the company said the per share amount will be increased by $0.0149 per day if the buyout is not completed by June 15. Penn said approvals for the merger remain pending before a number of state regulatory authorities. Gambling and racing activities are individually controlled by states, so the company needs the green light from each state it operates in.

Communications equipment maker Harris began fielding expressions of interest from potential buyers this week, with preliminary bids for the electronics and defense company in the low $70 per share range, or about $10 billion, the Wall Street Journal reported on Friday. That’s less than the $75 to $80 per share range the company’s board hopes to fetch, the newspaper said, citing people familiar with the matter. The identity of the bidders wasn’t known, but analysts have speculated that major defense companies such as General Dynamics Corp and Northrop Grumman might be interested, though they’ve said there has been little interest shown from potential buyers in the defense sector due to its current high valuation, narrow product focus and heavy commercial exposure. Athough Harris boasts solid earnings, U.S. defense spending is expected to peak soon, which could signal an end to the growth that has more than quadrupled Harris’ stock price over the past five years.

Australia’s Origin Energy has rejected an improved $13 billion bid from UK gas producer BG Group, saying its coal seam gas reserves alone are worth over $15 billion after doubling its resource estimate. Origin, Australia’s largest coal-seam gas producer, said it would now focus on how to get the best value from its reserves, possibly through partnerships to supply a liquefied natural gas plant or even through a break-up of the company, which also has power generation and retail businesses. “We’re now back in the game and we will be aggressively pursuing those alternatives as quickly as we can,” Chairman Kevin McCann told reporters. “BG is welcome to come back in any way they want,” McCann said. BG said it was surprised by Origin’s rejection and was considering its options.

A consortium including NBC Universal and Blackstone Group bidding for the Weather Channel is offering about $1.8 billion in equity for their bid, or roughly half the total offer, a source familiar with the matter said. The group, which also includes private equity firm Bain Capital, is seen as the leading bidder for the Weather Channel with a total offer of about $3.5 billion, the source said.

Private equity firms are pursuing a bid for Orica’s Chemnet, sources involved with the auction said, as the Australian explosives maker looks to sell the chemicals trader, which could be worth more than A$600 million ($574 million). Goldman Sachs is running the sale of the division, with CVC Capital Partners and Kohlberg Kravis Roberts among the firms with the strongest interest, the sources said. Chemnet, Australasia’s leading chemicals trading business, sells chemicals to a range of industries, including the food and drink, pharmaceuticals and construction sectors. Chemnet posted A$40.6 million EBITDA in the six months to end-March, but it was the least profitable of Orica’s five divisions during that period, making up 16 percent of its A$5 billion sales but only 7.7 percent of its A$528 million EBITDA.

Other deals of the day:

* Drug maker Cadila Healthcare unit, Zydus Cadila, said it acquired Spain’s Laboratorios Combix to gain entry into the Spanish market.

* Finnish builder YIT Oyj said it has agreed to buy building service operations from MCE AG in Germany, Austria, Poland, the Czech Republic, Hungary and Romania for 55 million euros ($85.8 million).

* Steel manufacturer Sujana Metal Products said it acquired three steel units and would invest 1.8 billion rupees for the acquisitions, modernization and capacity expansion, sending shares up.

* Hyundai Heavy Industries, the world’s top shipbuilder, said it and an affiliate would buy a small brokerage and an asset management firm from South Korean conglomerate CJ for an undisclosed sum.

* China Merchants Bank has agreed in principle to buy control of Hong Kong’s Wing Lung Bank in a deal that would value the lender at over $4.5 billion, a person familiar with the situation said.

* Australia’s Origin Energy rejected a revised $13 billion takeover bid from UK gas producer BG Group, and upped the ante by doubling its own gas reserves estimate.

* Major Chinese appliance maker Qingdao Haier said that it was in talks with Deutsche Bank to buy Deutsche’s 20.1 percent stake in a sister company, Haier Electronics Group Co.

* Beijing Gehua CATV Network, a Beijing-based cable television service provider, said it will form a China joint venture with Liberty Global, the world’s biggest international cable group.