Deal roundup, 4.1.15

  • Simon Property Group Inc scrapped its attempt to buy Macerich Co after the smaller shopping mall owner rejected its sweetened offer of $23.2 billion including debt.
  • Sears Holdings Corp said it would raise more than $2.5 billion by selling stores to a real estate investment trust it is setting up, in the latest move to shore up its finances.
  • The Canada Pension Plan Investment Board (CPPIB) and Hermes Infrastructure are to buy a 30 percent stake in Associated British Ports for about 1.6 billion pounds ($2.4 billion).
  • Guardian Media Group (GMG) said on Wednesday it would sell all the fossil fuel assets held in its 800 million pounds ($1.2 billion) investment fund as the UK media company looks to boost its sustainable investing.
  • Oasis Petroleum Inc may create a master limited partnership (MLP) for a $200 million North Dakota gas processing plant, taking advantage of a key financial trend in the energy sector to generate cash, President Taylor Reid said on Wednesday.
  • Spain’s Banco Santander SA, Europe’s biggest bank, plans to sell its only Australian wind farm partly because of uncertainty about the country’s support for renewable energy, a person familiar with the matter told Reuters.
  • Germany’s competition watchdog said it has decided to prohibit a plan by the country’s biggest supermarket group Edeka to buy grocery chain Kaiser’s, despite concessions it made.
  • State-owned Japan Post Holdings Co is actively seeking more acquisition opportunities after it agreed an A$6.5 billion ($5 billion) takeover of Australian freight and logistics firm Toll Holdings Ltd, a top official said.
  • Dubai Islamic Bank, the UAE’s largest Islamic bank, said it has offered 1.25 dirham per share in cash to buy the remaining shares in its mortgage unit Tamweel. DIB said it currently holds 86.5 percent of Tamweel and is in the process of buying the remaining 13.5 percent.
  • Private equity fund Everstone Capital said it had bought Payfront Technologies Pte Ltd, the Asia-Pacific payroll business of Aon Hewitt, for an undisclosed amount.
  • East African Breweries Ltd said it plans to sell one of its subsidiaries, Central Glass Industries Ltd, to South Africa’s Consol Glass Proprietary. EABL, controlled by Britain’s Diageo did not announce the value of the planned sale of the bottle maker.
  • Japan’s Credit Saison Co has secured permission from Vietnam’s central bank to buy 49 percent stake in a financial firm owned by the unlisted Ho Chi Minh City Development Bank (HDBank), the State Bank of Vietnam said. It gave no value of the deal.
  • Indian drugmaker Indoco Remedies Ltd said it would buy Piramal Enterprises Ltd’s clinical research business for an undisclosed amount to reduce its research costs.
  • The French government is considering the possibility that French power utility EDF SA should take control of struggling state-controlled group Areva SA’s nuclear reactors business, Areva’s chief executive said.
  • Canada’s Valeant Pharmaceuticals International Inc completed its $10.96 billion purchase of Salix Pharmaceuticals Ltd, the acquisitive company said on Wednesday.
  • Sika said the local takeover board had ruled that Saint-Gobain’s offer for a controlling stake in the Swiss chemicals group did not trigger an obligation to present a mandatory bid for the whole company.
  • Citigroup Inc is planning to sell Prime Reinsurance Co, a unit created five years ago when the bank spun off its life insurance business, Primerica Inc, Bloomberg reported.
  • Holcim’s second-biggest shareholder is still seeking better terms in the Swiss firm’s proposed merger with Lafarge, despite the cement maker’s chairman saying the company was open to giving it a seat on the combination’s board.
  • Mexican billionaire Carlos Slim’s America Movil will propose a spinoff of assets relating to its mobile phone business in Mexico to shareholders at a meeting April 17, the company said in a statement on Wednesday.
  • Enel Green Power set its sights on Asia to help fuel growth after it signed a deal with Japan’s Marubeni Corp to work together on business development in the area.
  • Turkey’s Cukurova Holding on Wednesday launched an attempt to buy out Russian billionaire Mikhail Fridman’s indirect stake in Turkcell, the latest manoeuvre in a decade-long fight for control of the market-leading wireless operator.
  • Japan’s Sony Corp halved its stake in camera and endoscope maker Olympus Corp to 5 percent to raise funds for a restructuring drive under which it is boosting investment in sensors and videogames while pulling back from unprofitable segments.
  • Dr Reddy’s Laboratories Ltd, India’s second-largest drugmaker by sales, said it will buy some established brands of Belgian drugmaker UCB SA in India, Nepal, Sri Lanka and Maldives for 8 billion rupees ($128 million).
  • Warsaw-listed real estate developer Globe Trade Centre SA signed a preliminiary agreement to sell an office building in Poland’s southern city of Krakow for 42 million euro ($45.2 million).

($1 = 62.32 Indian rupees) ($1 = 0.93 euros) ($1 = 3.6728 dirham) ($1 = 0.6775 pounds)

(Compiled by Anet Josline Pinto in Bengaluru)