CGU and Norwich Union are planning a £18bn merger to create a leading supplier of general insurance life and pensions and up to 4000 job losses are expected to follow... [more]

Alphameric is acquiring Pennine Retail the supplier of IT systems to retailers for £60m... [more]

Courtaulds Textiles is to sell its Standfast and Weavestyle furnishings operations to Walker Greenbank for £9m and is now looking to sell Zorbit nursery products and Christy towels... [more]

Unigate has agreed to merge its dairy and cheese operations into Dairy Crest leaving it free to focus on the expansion of its convenience foods business in Europe... [more]

ED&F Man is to sell off its commodities trading business to a management team for £587m and the remaining financial services business will be renamed Man Group... [more]

Holidaybreak is acquiring Explore Worldwide the supplier of adventure holidays for £30m... [more]

Stewart Ivory the fund manager is to be acquired by Colonial First State Investments of Australia for £72m prompting speculation that other smaller Scottish fund managers could also lose their indepen... [more]

Telesmart Developments is to be acquired by Prism Holdings the South African supplier of secure electronic transaction systems for £4.5m. ... [more]

Williams Fasteners has acquired Dunning's Fasteners the Teesside-based supplier of heavy-duty nuts and bolts for undisclosed terms... [more]

Kerry Group has sold its DCA bakery business in the US and Canada to Pillsbury the Diageo subsidiary for £62m... [more]

Aberdeen Asset Management has acquired the fund management arm of the Irish state electricity company ESB for £5.8m... [more]

ITE Group is to acquire the E-Business exhibition from Redman Media for up to £10m... [more]

Bradford & Bingley is to acquire John Charcoal the mortgage broker for £100m which will give it access to a further 150 independent financial advisers... [more]

Specialist Computer Holdings has acquired the computer distribution business of Buhrmann of the Netherlands for about £115m in order to meet rising demand for pan-European IT services... [more]

Morgan Crucible is to sell its power industry products business to Tyco International of the US for £44m... [more]

Amec has launched an agreed £221m takeover bid for Agra the Canadian environmental and engineering business... [more]

Swift Structures has been acquired by O'Rourke to create a combined concrete contracting group with turnover of more than £300m... [more]

Tibbett & Britten has acquired the TCA group of companies for undisclosed terms in order to expand its fresh produce distribution business in France and Spain... [more]

Tempered Spring the Sheffield-based manufacturer of suspension systems and components has been acquired by Meritor of the US... [more]

Dawson International is to sell its Pringle knitwear business to Fang Brothers Knitting of Hong Kong for about £5m... [more]