Friends Ivory & Sime is to acquire London & Manchester's fund management divisions for £35m which will increase its funds under management by 21% to £29bn... [more]

CGU is acquiring Tellit Assurance the French general insurer from Royal & Sun Alliance for £7m... [more]

Stagecoach is planning to acquire Citybus the Hong Kong bus operator for £178m with some of the funding coming from a £140m share placing... [more]

Shield Diagnostics is planning to acquire Axis Biochemicals of Norway for £67m which will enable the two companies to jointly develop tests for assessing the risk of heart disease... [more]

Caverdale has acquired Navyclose the retailer of marine leisure products for £1.6m... [more]

WH Smith has acquired Helicon the educational publisher for £5.6m which could lead to Smith offering free access to an encyclopaedia on the internet... [more]

Vodafone is set to acquire AirTouch the US cellular phone company for $61bn following the withdrawal of Bell Atlantic from the bidding... [more]

Travel City Direct has acquired Robert Davies Travel and its holiday shops in Cardiff Caerphilly Barry and Porthcawl... [more]

Readicut International is acquiring Chamberlain Coatings the wallcoverings business £13m... [more]

Tecroc has acquired Appleby Building Products and will set up a southern distribution centre at Appleby's site in Ditton Kent... [more]

VHE has acquired West Cumberland Engineering the steel fabricator and insulation contractor for up to £2m... [more]

Abbey Hanson Rowe the architectural firm is to merge with Holford Associates and will then seek to expand into building surveying and environmental consultancy... [more]

Informa has acquired the Linkraven magazine publishing business for an initial £2.1m which will provide it with a flagship aviation title and improved access to the US market... [more]

United News & Media has acquired Verecom of the US Fematec of Argentina and Stammer of Italy for £40m in order to boost its Miller Freeman publishing activities... [more]

Dairy Crest has bought Longs Dairies for £4m in order to strengthen its position as the leading supplier to doorstep customers in East Anglia... [more]

Spaceminster the Milton Keynes-based supplier of injection moulding machines has acquired Lupton Holdings for £1m... [more]

Goodwins the Staffordshire-based confectionery and tobacco wholesaler has been acquired by BWG of Dublin for undisclosed terms... [more]

Sears is to sell its Creation store card business to Groupe Cofinoga of France for £139m and is also close to agreeing the sale of a number of development properties... [more]

Dudley Jenkins the producer of envelopes and database mailing lists is to be acquired by Wegener Arcade of the Netherlands for £81m... [more]

London International Group is to close its group headquarters in London and move to its European regional office in Hertfordshire with the loss of 25 jobs... [more]