The following bids, mergers, acquisitions and disposals involving European, U.S., Canadian and Asian companies were reported by 1000 GMT on Wednesday:
** Rupert Murdoch's News Corp made a $2 billion takeover offer for Australia's Consolidated Media Holdings , boosting top shareholder and billionaire James Packer's warchest as he abandons media in favour of casinos.
** Swedish packaging firms Korsnas and Billerud said they would merge their operations to create a leading player in an industry which has sought consolidation to deal with declining demand.
The deal involves holding company Kinnevik selling its Korsnas packaging operations to slightly bigger rival Billerud for 2.7 billion crowns ($388 million) to form a combined group called BillerudKorsnas with annual sales of about 20 billion crowns.
** Britain's Sage Group entered the fast-growing and relatively undeveloped Brazilian software market by buying Folhamatic Group, a provider of accounting, tax, payroll and regulatory software to small businesses.
The company expects to pay 125 million pounds ($196 million) for 75 percent of Folhamatic.
** Mizuho Financial Group said it had agreed to buy a Brazilian unit of Germany's WestLB, the latest move by a Japanese bank to snap up assets amid the euro zone crisis.
This article is copyrighted by Reuters
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