India's Bharti revives MTN deal Bharti Airtel, India's biggest mobile operator, controlled by telecoms billionaire Sunil Bharti Mittal, has revived talks with MTN of South Africa for a cross-share holding deal that could lead to a full merger and create one of the world's biggest telecoms groups. The cash and share swap would value MTN at about R157 ($19) per share – a market cap of about $36bn – a premium of more than 20% over Monday's share price. Previous talks in 2008 ended in acrimony. See this article online.
http://ftalphaville.ft.com/blog/2009/05/26/56212/indias-bharti-revive
| Germany to unveil choice for GM arm The German government is set to name a preferred bidder for General Motors' cash-strapped European operations by early Thursday, paving the way for one of the country's biggest industrial bail-outs. Chancellor Angela Merkel will on Wednesday meet officials from the US, GM and bidders for GM's European units Opel and Vauxhall. The three bidders are Italy's Fiat, Canada's Magna and Belgian investor RHJ International. See this article online.
http://ftalphaville.ft.com/blog/2009/05/26/56211/germany-to-unveil-ch
| Danone plans €3bn cash call Danone, the world's biggest yoghurt maker, plans to launch a rights issue to raise €3bn ($4.2bn) to reduce its net debt and give it the flexibility to make bolt-on acquisitions. The French group, which made net profits of €1.3bn in 2008, has been hit by the downturn in consumer spending. Danone said details of the rights issue will be announced this week but that existing shareholders would have preferential subscription rights. See this article online.
http://ftalphaville.ft.com/blog/2009/05/26/56210/danone-plans-e3bn-ca
| Porsche options profit at risk Porsche, struggling to combine with Volkswagen, could lose some of the €17.3bn ($24.3bn) in profits recorded from holding VW options because it may not have the money to exercise them, reports Bloomberg. Porsche bought options and VW stock for more than three years and controls more than 70% of Europe's biggest automaker. Now, Porsche may be unable to raise the money needed to cash in the options, according to analysts' research. See this article online.
http://ftalphaville.ft.com/blog/2009/05/26/56209/porsche-options-prof
| CSL says US may block Talecris deal CSL, Australian blood plasma products maker, said that US regulators are likely to block its planned $3.1bn takeover of US rival Talecris Biotherapeutics. US regulators had indicated they would oppose the deal – agreed last August – although a formal decision was still a few days away, CSL said without elaborating. But analysts suggested the Federal Trade Commission could be concerned about price competition in the US market. See this article online.
http://ftalphaville.ft.com/blog/2009/05/26/56208/csl-says-us-may-bloc
| Rio cuts ore price, says Chinalco deal 'evolving' The $19.5bn tie-up between global miner Rio Tinto and China's state-owned Chinalco is an "evolving" deal and still subject to shareholder consultation, Rio's iron ore chief Sam Walsh said Tuesday, reports Reuters. Rio chairman Jan du Plessis arrives in Australia this week to talk to shareholders. Separately, Bloomberg reports Tuesday that Rio agreed to a 33% drop in contract prices with Japan's Nippon Steel, the first decline in seven years. See this article online.
http://ftalphaville.ft.com/blog/2009/05/26/56207/rio-cuts-ore-price-s
| Citic Pacific to weed out non-core assets Citic Pacific, the HK listed arm of China's biggest investment company, said on Monday it would offload some non-core assets. The move is part of a business review ordered by its new head, who took over after a forex scandal that triggered a police probe and management shake-up. Chang Zhenming, who became chairman and managing director in April, also said Citic Pacific would integrate its real estate operations with that of Citic group, its Chinese state-owned parent. See this article online.
http://ftalphaville.ft.com/blog/2009/05/26/56206/citic-pacific-to-wee
| Pressure grows for vendor financing Companies anxious to boost liquidity by selling unwanted assets are under pressure to finance those sales themselves to draw bids from credit-strapped buyers. Seller financing has been considered in the disposals of at least three businesses now being circled by buy-out investors and rivals: Valvoline, the auto products business owned by chemicals company Ashland; the US sand and gravel business of Mexico's Cemex; and Safway, the US scaffolding unit of Germany's ThyssenKrupp. See this article online.
http://ftalphaville.ft.com/blog/2009/05/26/56205/pressure-grows-for-v
| Companies share out underwriting fees US companies are trying to protect their access to capital by hiring all their lending banks as bookrunners in order to share out underwriting fees when issuing equity or debt securities. So far this year, 40% of corporate bond issues bigger than $500m have used more than three bookrunners, according to Dealogic – up from 22% a year earlier. Small deals of $100m or more have also employed more bookrunners. The proportion of such deals with more than three bookrunners has doubled this year to 30%. See this article online.
http://ftalphaville.ft.com/blog/2009/05/26/56204/companies-share-out-
| US cracks down on corporate bribes The US Justice Department is increasing its prosecutions of alleged acts of foreign bribery by US companies, forcing them to take costly steps to defend against scrutiny, reports the WSJ. The crackdown under the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, or FCPA, now extends across five continents and penetrates entire industries. Sun Microsystems and Royal Dutch Shell are under Justice Department review, among at least 120 companies under investigation. See this article online.
http://ftalphaville.ft.com/blog/2009/05/26/56203/us-cracks-down-on-co
| BofA expands Japan equities Bank of America said it is hiring senior staff from global rivals including Citigroup, Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs to expand its equity sales business in Japan, reports Bloomberg. The move, backed by BofA's global markets head, Thomas Montag, comes as banks including most recently HSBC reduce equity-related operations in Japan. See this article online.
http://ftalphaville.ft.com/blog/2009/05/26/56202/bofa-expands-japan-e
| Overnight markets: Mostly down Asian stocks mostly fell on Tuesday, led by technology companies and banks, as concern mounted that North Korea may step up missile tests and investors speculated that a report will show the US housing market is still contracting. Futures on the S&P500 Index were unchanged ahead of the resumption in US trading on Tuesday after Monday's holiday.
Asian markets (Tues)
03:15 BST
Nikkei down 71.70 (-0.77%) at at 9,275.30
Topix down 3.24 (-0.37%) at 879.76
Hang Seng up 59.30 (0.35%) at 17,121.82 US markets (Fri)
S&P500 down 1.33 (-0.15%) at 887.00
DJIA down 14.81 (-0.18%) at 8,277.32
Nasdaq down 3.24 (-0.19%)) at 1,692.01
European markets (Mon - London closed)
Eurofirst 300 (Mon) up 1.71 (0.20%) at 857.71
FTSE100 (Fri) up 19.82 (-0.46%) at 4,365.29
Currencies
04:10 BST
€/$ 1.3964 (1.4001)
$/¥ 94.7800 (94.6300)
£/$ 1.5877 (1.5885) Commodities
04:00 BST
Brent Crude (ICE) up $0.13 at $60.34
Light Crude (Nymex) up $0.18 at $61.39
100 Oz Gold (Comex) down $2.30 at $956.30
Copper (Comex) up $1.30 at $211.65 10-year government bond yields (%)
04:20 BST
US 3.44 (3.45)
UK 3.73 (3.65)
Germany 3.50 (3.50)
Japan 1.45 (1.44) Sources: FT, Bloomberg See this article online.
http://ftalphaville.ft.com/blog/2009/05/26/56201/overnight-markets-mo
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