Gresham Hotels is being eyed by a consortium of Irish businessmen who would like to rebrand the company as a four-star city centre hotel chain. Another unnamed company has also made a bid for the chai... [more]

Aspro, the Spanish operator of water parks, animal parks and aquariums in continental Europe, has made a £7.4m cash offer for Deep-Sea Leisure, which operates marine visitor centres.... [more]

General Electric is selling its B2B e-commerce business, GE Global eXchange Services, to Francisco Partners, a technology buy-out fund, for an estimated $800m. ... [more]

Wendel Investissment is leading a consortium to negotiate exclusively for Legrand, the French electronics group. The purchase, from Schneider Electric, would be one of Europe's biggest leveraged buyou... [more]

Oxford Glycosciences, the biotechnology company, may be forced to merge with a rival, as its only drug product was refused by US regulators. Potential partners include Antisoma, Xenova and British Bio... [more]

Arriva has acquired a 51% stake in Transportes Sul de Tejo, the Portuguese-based bus operator with 1,300 staff, from the Barraqueiro Group for £23m, and has an option to buy the remaining 49%.... [more]

Wolseley has acquired four more building material distributors for £10m -Sumner & Dunbar and Tahoe Truckee Supply of the US, Brock Engineering of Canada and O'Rourke Plumbing Supplies of Northern Irel... [more]

The health club operator Esporta received a £133m hostile takeover bid from the private equity group Duke Street Capital last month, which it rejected. The company is now hoping to receive a higher of... [more]

Seeboard, the south-east England electricity supplier, has been acquired by Electricite de France for £1.39bn, and the business will be merged with London Electricity to create a combined group with m... [more]

Jefferson Smurfit, the Irish packaging group, was to undergo a £2.4bn management buy-out backed by US private equity firm Madison Dearborn Partners. Now several other bidders have approached the compa... [more]

Moss Bros, the suit hire and men's clothing chain, has been approached by BMB, who are interested in a takeover. The textiles entrepreneur Harold Tillman is also considering bidding for the company.... [more]

It has been commented that Abbey National is a likely candidate for a takeover bid, since it issued profit warnings. Its chief executive has admitted that he was in talks that could lead to a merger.... [more]

Bookmaker Fred Done is preparing to make a £850m bid for Coral-Eurobet. There are a number of other potential bidders for the business, which is the third-largest betting shop chain. They include riva... [more]

Apax Partners, the private equity firm, has put Xerium, its paper machinery firm, up for auction. It is estimated that the business, which was acquired from Invensys for $810m in 1999, could fetch som... [more]

The UK private equity fund Duke Street Capital is in discussions with Prestige Nursing agency. The second-biggest nursing agency in Britain, Prestige could fetch around £70m. Healthcare has received i... [more]

Elkstone's Beauvale Furnishings business in Ilkeston has been bought out of receivership by a local businessman, saving 250 jobs.... [more]

Budgens, the convenience stores operator, is to be acquired by Musgrave of Ireland for £316m, and Musgrave is looking to open up to 20 new stores a year in the UK.... [more]

Milk Group is to merge with Zenith Milk to create a new co-operative organisation called Dairy Farmers of Britain, in order to reduce the haulage and administration costs involved with supplying milk ... [more]

French conglomerate CGIP and US private equity firm Kohlberg Kravis Roberts are leading a consortium to buy the French electronics firm, Legrand, from Schneider Electric. Estimated to go for up to 5bn... [more]

The real estate and hotels group Cendant is in talks with Budget Group. They are thought to be considering pay some $100m for Budget.... [more]