The eurozone's largest banking group, Banco Santander, continues its buying spree. After taking over British banks Bradford & Bingley and Alliance & Leicester, it has announced the acquisition of US Sovereign Bancorp for 1.9 billion dollars.
British Energy has accepted a 15.7 billion euro takeover bid from French electricity giant EDF, which looks set to transform Britain's nuclear energy sector.
Commerzbank's plans to buy the Dresdner Bank for 9.8 billion euros will result in Germany's second largest banking group. The takeover will involve the elimination of 9,000 jobs in order to save 2 billion euros in costs.
Steel giant ArcelorMittal didn't get China's approval to take over China Oriental, one of the most important steel producers in the country. It's the second time Beijing has thwarted Lakshmi Mittal's ambitions for the Chinese market.
In a special shareholders meeting, the largest US mortgage lender, Countrywide Financial, accepted a 4 billion dollar takeover bid from the Bank of America. The deal, decided in January, was made to help neutralize the US housing crisis.
Days after Microsoft withdrew its $47.5bn takeover bid, Yahoo! CEO, Jerry Yang, said he is 'open' to reopening discussions with Microsoft. Yahoo Inc’s stock dropped by 15 percent after the buyout negotiations failed.
Despite Microsoft's insistence that they have walked away from the Yahoo! deal, analysts believe the computing giant will return with a new offer for the popular search engine, hoping to tap into the increasingly lucrative online advertising market.
As Microsoft pulls out of talks over a $47.5bn takeover of Yahoo, the latter faces growing pressure to find an alternative strategy to keep its share price afloat. Yahoo is likely to push for an advertising partnership with Google.
Microsoft CEO Stephen Ballmer announced in a letter to Yahoo that his company was withdrawing from its proposal to buy Yahoo, after the latter had repeatedly refused bids in excess of $40 bn. (Report: N. Germain)
Takeover talks between Microsoft and Yahoo have started, with the Redmond software giant ready to up its initial 44,6 billion dollar bid, according to a close source.
