Mid-Markets

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British defence company Chemring – which makes everything from missile countermeasures to devices for neutralising improvised explosive devices – is buying Roke Manor Research from Siemens for £55m in cash.

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UK pubs and restaurants group Mitchells & Butlers (M&B) has sold 333 non-core pubs to private equity firm TDR Capital for £373m (US$583.3m), reflecting its strategy to focus more on food.

Breaking into the US market, UK engineering group WS Atkins has acquired US-based construction company PBSJ in an all-cash transaction valued at £178m (US$280m).

Almost half of Europe’s electricity grid infrastructure will need replacing over the next 12 years, or so it has been estimated. In addition, existing networks must be connected to new sources of renewable energy, often located in remote places or even offshore, in the case of wind.

France’s Danone, the world’s largest yoghurt maker, is selling as expected its 18.4% stake in Russia’s Wimm-Bill-Dann, currently the country’s largest dairy group with a 17% market share, for US$470m.

Payment solution provider MasterCard agreed to buy AIM-listed DataCash for £333m (US$520m), in a cash deal aimed at boosting its secure e-commerce payment platform.

Social and primary care service provider Nestor Healthcare has rejected Acromas’s £101.6m (US$156.7m) takeover bid on the grounds that the offer was “materially undervalued”.

UK cable operator Virgin Media has appointed UBS and Goldman Sachs to help sell its stake in the UKTV channels business, which was recently valued at £350m (US$560m).

Glanbia managing director John Moloney says the company's majority shareholder Glanbia Co-operative Society's €343m offer to buy its Irish dairy business is "dormant" after the group saw first half operating profits rise 40% to €66m.

A private equity bid looks imminent for The Restaurant Group (TRG) as its share price has risen by 4p to 247-1/2 per share amid talk that private equity suitors might be looking to gobble up the business.

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In the renewable energy market solar and wind power have enjoyed high volumes of M&A activity over the past few years, but as both sectors mature and consolidate, investors are looking for the next global trend and all eyes are on biomass. Aimee Donnellan reports

Payment solution provider MasterCard agreed to buy AIM-listed DataCash for £333m (US$520m) in a cash deal aimed at boosting its secure e-commerce payment platform.

UK IT company Micro Focus International could be vulnerable to a takeover bid following a week that saw the IT firm admit its revenue growth had stalled causing its share price to tumble by almost a third (31%).

France’s Danone, the world’s largest yoghurt maker, is selling as expected its 18.4% stake in Russia’s Wimm-Bill-Dann, currently the country’s largest dairy group with a 17% market share, for US$470m.

British defence company Chemring – which makes everything from missile countermeasures to devices for neutralising improvised explosive devices – is buying Roke Manor Research from Siemens for £55m in cash.

Photos: Tim Levene

Rami Cassis has completed his fourth deal in three years to reverse Documetric into AIM-listed Intelligent Environments and has plans for more, he tells Christopher Spink.

During the first half of 2010, private equity investment activity in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) ground to an unexpected halt, accounting for just US$1.2bn of deal activity compared with US$6.2bn in the second half of 2009, according to the latest data from Thomson Reuters.

Christian Candy, the London-based property mogul, has made a 13p per share offer to acquire gold mining company Metals Exploration, valued at £35.76m.