UPDATE 3-Deals of the day -- mergers and acquisitions
(Adds Air Berlin, Ratiopharm, Citigroup, King Pharmaceuticals, Centrica and others)
Nov 24 (Reuters) - The following bids, mergers, acquisitions and disposals involving European, North American and Asian companies were reported by 2100 GMT on Monday.
(For Reuters columns on deals, click on [DEALTALK/] )
** China Life Insurance Co (2628.HK) (601628.SS), the world's biggest life insurer by market value, is interested in buying Asian assets of American International Group (AIG.N), a senior China Life manager briefed on the situation said.
To read more, please double click on [ID:nSHA43914]
** King Pharmaceuticals Inc (KG.N) said it has agreed to acquire Alpharma Inc ALO.N for about $1.6 billion, ending a fractious takeover tussle and expanding King's presence in the market for pain drugs. [ID:nN24517399]
** The chairman of Europe's biggest bank HSBC Holdings (HSBA.L) said he would not rule out a move for some assets of U.S. bank Citigroup (C.N) after the U.S. government stepped in to rescue the lender. [ID:nLO716200]
** UK energy supplier Centrica (CNA.L) is close to mandating an acquisition loan backing its purchase of a 25 percent stake in British Energy BGY.L, two bankers close to the deal told Reuters Loan Pricing Corp. [ID:nLO511789]
** German industrialist Adolf Merckle has pledged to sell generic-drug maker Ratiopharm in part or in whole to obtain a moratorium on loan payments from his banks, two people familiar with the matter told Reuters. [ID:nWEA6509]
** The majority shareholder in Russian airline S7 has been approached to sell a stake in the company and has hired an investment bank to assess the offer, S7 general director Vladislav Filyov said. [ID:nLO119969 ]
** Merger talks between Air Berlin (AB1.DE) and charter airline TUIfly are close to collapsing, sources familiar with the matter told Reuters. [ID:nWEA6512]
** Johnson & Johnson (JNJ.N) said it agreed to acquire Israel's Omrix Biopharmaceuticals OMRI.O for about $438 million in cash, to expand its biosurgical and immunotherapy product offerings. [ID:nN24497473]
** Spanish savings bank La Caixa is trying to help Russia's LUKOIL (LKOH.MM) obtain financing to buy a stake in oil company Repsol (REP.MC), a source close to the deal said. [ID:nLO22933]
** Anheuser-Busch Inbev INTB.BR launched a planned eight-for-five rights issue at a steeply-discounted price of 6.45 euros per share to part-fund InBev's $52 billion purchase of Anheuser-Busch, sending its stock price down. [ID:nLO632551]
** Bahraini investment bank Investcorp INVB.BH(INVBq.L) and Barclays' (BARC.L) private equity arm closed an 800 million euro ($1.01 billion) deal to buy Italian vending machine maker N&W Global Vending Spa, a spokesman for Investcorp said. [ID:nLO246205]
** U.S. asset manager Nuveen Investments said it is buying small stock fund manager Winslow Capital Management, underscoring the pressure to sell that smaller firms are feeling from slumping markets. [ID:nN24413860]
** Major shareholders of Hynix Semiconductor picked Credit Suisse (CSGN.VX), Woori Securities (005940.KS) and Korea Development Bank to lead manage the sale of 36 percent of the chip maker in a deal that could be worth about 968 billion won ($646 million) at current market prices. [ID:nSEO46534]
