Lloyds Banking Group <LLOY.L> has agreed to sell its stake in housebuilder Crest Nicholson to U.S. investment company Varde, continuing to shed non-core assets and refocus on its core lending activities...

(Reuters) Goldman Sachs has been fined 20 million pounds ($30.9 million) by the UK's financial regulator for failing to disclose it was under fraud investigation by its U.S. counterpart, the BBC reported on Wednesday.

(Reuters) Australia's competition regulator blocked National Australia Bank's $12 billion bid for AXA Asia Pacific for a second time, dashing NAB's efforts to cement its dominance in the world's fourth-largest wealth management market.

Hong Kong-based private equity firm First Eastern Investment Group will take a stake in All Nippon Airways' planned low cost carrier (LCC), the Nikkei business daily said on Thursday...

Brazilian firm Potassio do Brasil says it has discovered more than 1 billion tonnes of potash in the Amazon region that could meet a quarter of the agricultural giant's needs per year, a top company executive said on Wednesday...

French insurer AXA SA <AXAF.PA> said it was reviewing its options on how to expand in Asia after Australia's competition regulator blocked National Australia Bank <NAB.AX> from taking over its Australian arm and selling the Asian operations to AXA SA...

Oracle Corp offered its new co-president, Mark Hurd, former head of Hewlett-Packard Co, a salary of $950,000 and a bonus of up to $10 million for fiscal 2011, plus stock options...

California regulators are seeking fines of up to $9.9 billion from a unit of health insurer UnitedHealth Group Inc, citing mismanaged medical claims, failure to pay doctors and other lapses...

Sanofi-Aventis SA pitched a new offer to acquire U.S. biotechnology company Genzyme Corp for $71 a share in exchange for the opportunity to conduct "partial due diligence"...

Oil giant BP <BP.L> is open to talks about selling assets to Russian companies as part of its $30 billion fund raising programme to help pay for the Gulf of Mexico oil spill, the group's Russia chief said on Wednesday...

Canadian gold producer Anatolia Minerals Development Ltd agreed to buy Australia's Avoca Resources for C$1.01 billion ($964.7 million) to create an intermediate global gold producer...

For a bank that prides itself on smooth successions, HSBC is suddenly scrambling to pick its next chairman...

Shanghai Pharmaceuticals Holding Co Ltd, the Chinese partner of Roche Holding AG, said it plans to raise at least 8 billion yuan ($1.2 billion) through a public share offering in...

German gambling restrictions breach European Union law, Europe's highest court said, giving a rare victory to companies seeking to break domestic monopolies in a lucrative industry...

Thailand's top energy firm, PTT Pcl, said it had put in a bid to buy the Thai operations of French retailer Carrefour SA, which analysts expect to fetch about $600 million...

The Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act gives the Securities and Exchange Commission many complex and time-sensitive responsibilities but...

Dubai may have to step up asset sales and government borrowing as a heavy debt repayment schedule for state-linked companies over the next few years puts pressure on government finances...

Libya's government denied it had any investments in foreign oil companies, in an apparent rebuff to the country's top energy official who had said buying shares in BP would be a good deal...

Saudi state-owned Saline Water Conversion Corp (SWCC) has awarded a $2.44 billion power plant contract to a group led by China's Sepco III Electric Power Construction Corp...

Emirates Telecommunication Corp, the Arab world's second-largest telecom operator by market value, does not expect a deal with India's Reliance Communications in 2010...

Foster's Group Ltd, Australia's largest brewer, said it rejected a private equity offer worth up to $2.5 billion for its wine unit as too cheap and would continue with the split of its beer and wine businesses...

Vodafone, the world's largest telecommunications operator by revenue, said it sold its 3.2 percent stake in China Mobile for $6.6 billion...

U.S. regulators are probing certain practices around "quote stuffing," where large numbers of rapid-fire stock orders are placed and canceled almost immediately SEC Chairman Mary Schapiro said...

European Union finance ministers agreed to a sweeping overhaul of how the bloc's financial industry is policed, but remained locked in dispute over the taxation of banking and trading...

American International Group Inc plans to seek Hong Kong listing committee approval on September 21, to list its Asian life insurance unit, aiming to raise about $15 billion...

The United Arab Emirates' central bank has frozen four Iranian bank accounts cited in a United Nations Security Council blacklist after uncovering their presence in the UAE banking system...

The Office of Fair Trade will investigate the aggregates industry to assess whether the tax payer is getting a fair deal from suppliers of sand, gravel and broken rocks to road and house builders...

Dutch electronics group Philips said it will sell its remaining equity stake in chipmaker NXP Semiconductors NV to its underfunded British pension fund...

The U.S. Justice department is looking into Google Inc's takeover of airline ticketing software firm ITA Software Inc, to determine whether the deal would exert too much influence on the online travel industry...

Addressing a central complaint of foreign businesses, Vice President Xi Jinping said that China will treat overseas suppliers fairly when they bid for public procurement contracts...

China's Zijin Mining said it had terminated a plan to acquire Congolese copper miner Platmin Congo Limited after the agreement expires...

China will intensify efforts to encourage industrial consolidation and to draw factories inland from crowded coastal regions, government directives said, warning officials to leave such decisions to companies...

British Airways would be interested in discussing a merger with Qantas Airways, if Australia's top airline was a willing party, BA Chief Executive Willie Walsh said in a newspaper interview...

New Zealand's biggest airport, Auckland International Airport Ltd., will meet with Australian bond and equity investors to update them on the firm's annual results, it said...

Deutsche Bank's stake increase in France Telecom could point towards plans for a merger with Germany's Deutsche Telekom, in which it also holds a stake, a French union said...

Algeria's government unveiled a series of measures which appear to confirm the energy exporter's shift towards greater economic nationalism...

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has warned beverage makers Dr Pepper Snapple Group Inc and Unilever for making improper statements regarding green tea on product labels and web sites...

Google Inc will launch its service to bring the Web to TV screens in the United States this autumn and worldwide next year, its chief executive said, as it extends its reach from the desktop to the living room...

Mobinil, Egypt's top mobile firm by subscribers, is considering issuing bonds with a value of 1 billion Egyptian pounds ($180 million)...

British fund management firm City Financial said it has launched an Asian fund of hedge funds in a move designed to tap into the rapid development of the hedge fund industry in the region...

Abu Dhabi Investment Authority (ADIA), the sovereign wealth fund estimated to be the world's largest, named Ted Chu from U.S. automaker General Motors as its chief economist...

Indian billionaire Mukesh Ambani's Reliance Industries, which has struck three shale gas joint ventures with U.S. firms this year, may make a full buyout next as the cash-rich firm builds the...

AstraZeneca stepped up its drive into emerging markets by striking another licensing and supply deal with an Indian generic drugmaker, this time Aurobindo Pharma...

France Telecom kept its financial goals, after an arbitration tribunal fined its Polish unit 396 million euros ($531.3 million), and said the unit was considering whether to appeal...

The following bids, mergers, acquisitions and disposals involving European, U.S. and Asian companies were reported by...

Australian rail and ports operator Asciano Ltd will meet with Asian and U.S. bond investors, a source in discussion with the company said...

China plans to relax rules to allow smaller fund houses to launch overseas investment products, the Securities Times reported on Monday, citing an unnamed source...

BP has revived the sale of its Alaskan assets after failing to offload them to U.S. oil and gas company Apache in July, the Financial Times reported...

China will allow insurers to broaden investment channels into private equity and real estate, a move that could unleash as much as $100 billion worth of fresh funding into unlisted firms and the property sector...

Santander could hire up to 6,000 new staff over the next year or two as part its expansion in Britain, the Financial Times said...

French drugmaker Sanofi-Aventis would be prepared to moderately raise its $69 per share offer for Genzyme if the U.S. biotech agreed to negotiate, Dow Jones reported, citing a person familiar with the matter...

Israeli conglomerate Delek Group said on Sunday it was in talks to sell 22 percent of Delek Automotive Systems for 1 billion shekels ($264.6 million) to Gil Agmon...

Swedish bank Carnegie said it would buy HQ Bank, closed by authorities last weekend for breaking risk rules, for 268 million crowns ($37 million) in a deal approved by the regulator...

Brazilian state oil company Petrobras filed to sell up to $64.5 billion of new stock -- the largest in capital markets history -- to raise funds for the world's biggest oil exploration investment plan...

Banks have acknowledged they need to be more open about the size of their bonus pools and the methodology for paying star bankers after making progress in other areas of reforming pay structures...

A new conundrum faces financial markets -- why, if the global economy is heading back into trouble, are companies on an M&A binge and big investors snapping up so much corporate debt...

Canada's Goldcorp Inc agreed to buy gold miner Andean Resources Ltd for C$3.6 billion ($3.4 billion), trumping a competing offer from rival Eldorado Gold Corp...

The U.S. Treasury is concerned about how many foreign investors it should allow to buy big stakes in General Motors Co's proposed initial public offering, the Wall Street Journal said..

Australian iron ore miner Fortescue Metals and its CEO have been sued by the company's third-largest shareholder to stop it from raising funds, citing a breach of a 2006 funding deal...

Chinese and other investors have approached at least one big Canadian pension manager about a bid for Canada's Potash Corp to rival BHP Billiton's $39 billion hostile offer...

U.S. securities regulator is looking into a Wall Street trading practice in which unusually large numbers of orders to buy or sell stocks are placed in a fraction of a second...

The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp is not entitled to $900 million it demanded from the parent company of the failed Colonial Bank...

American International Group Inc has filed an application with the Hong Kong Stock Exchange seeking approval to list its Asian life insurance business...

A shareholder of Cogent Inc has sued the company's board, saying it agreed to sell the maker of identification systems too cheaply to U.S. manufacturer 3M Co...

Indonesian coal miner PT Harum Energy, owned by Tanito Coal Group, aims to raise as much as 4.1 trillion rupiah ($455 million) in its initial public offering, based on the share price range set...

Baidu Inc, operator of China's dominant search engine, said that it will focus its future mobile Internet investments on its core search business as it takes aim at the next big Internet space...

Essar Group and other Indian, Southeast Asian and Australian firms have expressed interest in Australian miner Kangaroo Resources' GPK coal project in Indonesia, a Kangaroo executive said...

Indian energy major Reliance Industries, controlled by billionaire Mukesh Ambani, has bought an additional 0.68 percent in EIH Ltd, raising its holding to 14.8 percent in the hotel chain...

The United States likely will strike a ground-breaking deal by the middle of next year to sell the United Arab Emirates a multibillion-dollar Lockheed Martin Corp missile defense system...

Algeria has dropped Orascom Telecom's adverts from all of the country's terrestrial television stations, a source with direct knowledge of the situation said, the latest move in a long-running dispute...

European companies are not quitting China for other countries despite complaints about the growing difficulty of doing business, the European Union Chamber of Commerce in China said...

China's Sinochem has hired HSBC bank to advise it on its options regarding Potash Corp, the target of a $38.6 billion hostile bid from BHP Billiton...

Brazil's government will charge state oil company Petrobras $8.51 per barrel for crude reserves to be used in a $43 billion oil-for-shares swap, a price seen as high that could limit interest in...

Australian energy firm Santos Ltd plans to raise as much as A$2 billion ($1.8 billion) in a rights issue to fund its Curtis Island liquefied natural gas project, The Australian newspaper said...

Eli Lilly & Co won a patent battle protecting its osteoporosis drug Evista, as an appeals court declined to toss out a permanent injunction preventing production of a generic copy of the medicine...

A federal judge approved the creation of a $150 million fund for Bank of America Corp shareholders as part of a settlement with the Securities and Exchange Commission over the bank's 2009 acquisition of Merrill Lynch...

Abu Dhabi National Energy Co's (TAQA) former chief executive has sued the company in a U.S. court, alleging he was forced out last year for trying to stop...

China's Brightoil is wrestling with top players BP and Shell for leadership of the world's largest fuel oil market, in a tough trading climate that makes it difficult for any...

The following bids, mergers, acquisitions and disposals involving European, U.S. and Asian companies were reported by 0600 GMT...

A subsidiary of France's Vinci, the world's largest construction group, is eyeing more complex projects in Abu Dhabi as it starts operations in a fiercely competitive market...

Israeli energy, automotive and real estate conglomerate Delek Group reported a drop in quarterly net profit, weighed down by higher financial expenses due to yen strength versus the shekel...