MID-DAY DEAL ROUND-UP

In a sign that Apple’s improved iPhone may be loosening the grip of BlackBerry maker Reseach in Motion’s on the corporate market, British bank HSBC is considering making the iPhone 3G the mobile device for its global employees, according to the New York Times’ DealBook.

Private equity firms are increasingly turning to the leveraged loan market to make up for the paucity of leveraged buyout deals, writes the Wall Street Journal’s Deal Journal.

Add Cox Enterprises to the list of newspaper owners shedding assets, says TheDeal.com. Cox plans to sell dailies and weeklies, but will hang on to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

 
OTHER DEALS OF THE DAY:
** Brazil’s Ultrapar Participacoes said on Thursday it will buy Texaco’s fuel distribution assets in Brazil for about $720 million, in the latest shake-up of the country’s gas-station business.

** British Airways, American Airlines and Spain’s Iberia have signed a deal for a transatlantic tie-up and will now file for antitrust immunity in the United States, the carriers said on Thursday.

** Clearwater Seafoods Income Fund said on Thursday it will be taken private by a consortium led by Clearwater Fine Foods Inc in a deal worth about C$40 million.

** Insurer Swiss Life stepped up its move into German pension sales by cutting share buybacks to pay for a stake in MLP and more shares in AWD sending its stock lower.

** Protherics Plc shares surged more than 40 percent on Thursday after the biotech company said it had received several bid approaches, prompting speculation it may be bought by AstraZeneca Plc, which has a deal dating back to 2005 with Protherics covering its experimental drug CytoFab for sepsis, a deadly syndrome linked to serious bloodstream infections.

Barnes & Noble Inc reportedly has read the market and decided to turn the page on an acquisition of rival Borders Group Inc. The largest U.S. specialty bookseller, which had been looking into a bid for Borders, is likely to take a pass because of tight lending markets that would make it difficult to arrange bank financing, the Wall Street Journal said, citing people familiar with the situation. Borders, which put itself up for sale in March, has struggled with liquidity issues and has been closing underperforming stores and taking other steps to turn around its business.

Reuters’ DealTalk columnists report that overseas metal and mining companies may have U.S. coal assets in their sights. Indian and Russian firms in particular are looking to snap up assets in order to gain a foothold in the U.S. metallurgical coal market, DealTalk says. Metallurgical coal, also called met or coking coal, is used to make coke, the material used to fuel blast furnaces at steel mills. Two assets that could be on the market are privately owned U.S. coal producers United Coal and Bluestone, one source familiar with the matter said.

Shares in Impala Platinum (Implats), the world’s No. 2 producer of the precious metal, raced 9 percent higher on Thursday partly boosted by market talk that BHP Billiton could make a $26 billion bid for the South African company. South African website www.Miningmx.com said BHP may soon have no choice but to make an offer of at least 200 billion rand ($25.65 billion) for Implats. The article said BHP, the world’s largest producer of metals and minerals, had the world’s best and most diversified portfolio of assets in the resources sector — with the exception of platinum, to which it has no exposure. “At the moment it is pure speculation, but yes, for sure the speculation is affecting the (share) price,” Roy Lamb, a trader at Investec Securities in Johannesburg said. BHP declined to comment.

Other deals of the day:

* QBE Insurance Ltd, Australia’s top insurer by premium income, said it had agreed to acquire U.S. mortgage insurance group PMI’s businesses in Australia and New Zealand and in Asia for a total of A$1.027 billion ($901 million).

* Swiss insurer Swiss Life has taken a stake in German pension sales specialist MLP, upped its holding in rival AWD for 427 million euros ($639.5 million), and will cap share buybacks.

* Dutch Philips Electronics said it has sold its remaining stake in Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC), which will result in a book gain of 260 million euros ($390 million).

* Thailand’s largest music and entertainment group, GMM Grammy, said it would merge with its 79.75 percent owned subsidiary, GMM Media, as part of a business restructuring.

* Gas Natural raised its potential stake in power generator Union Fenosa to over 50 percent after agreeing to buy a 5.15 percent stake from savings bank Caja de Ahorros Del Mediterraneo (CAM).

Biotechnology company Genentech Inc on Wednesday followed ImClone Systems Inc’s playbook by rejecting a takeover bid by its largest shareholder.

Genentech rejected an offer by Roche Holding AG to acquire the shares of the Genentech it did not already own, saying the the $89 per share offer undervalued the company. Roche said it believed its offer for Genentech was fair and generous.

The move mirrored ImClone’s comments earlier this month, when it called a bid by Bristol-Myers Squibb Co too low. Bristol offered to acquire the 83 percent of ImClone it doesn’t already own for $60 a share, and said it believed the proposal was “full and fair.”

Eric Schmidt, an analyst at Cowen and Co, viewed Genentech’s response a classic game of chess, saying “This is no surprise at all. People believe the company is worth more and that Roche can afford to pay more. The game of chess has begun.”

Arbitrageurs, who specialize in trading takeover stocks, said they viewed both deals as inevitable but some haggling over the price was to be expected.

“In both cases, you have the obvious buyer and partner. It’s just a matter of price,” said one arbitrageur who declined to be named.