The market may be sickly, but Genentech investors are in that most rare place, holding a stock that is close to its lifetime high of just over $100 with a suitor repeatedly raising its bid for the company like it was 2006 all over again.

While Swiss drugmaker Roche says its latest official bid of $93 per share for the U.S. biotech, made last Friday, is fair, a source tells us they are prepared to go to $95, valuing the deal at $46.7 billion. Roche shareholders seem happy with the bidding so far, trading the shares higher today as the company talks to investors at its AGM.

Genentech would give Roche a big shot of lucrative cancer drugs and other medicines, including Avastin, which is approved to treat advanced colon, breast and lung cancers and is being tested for several other uses. And with Big Pharma marriages all the rage in ‘09, Genentech investors must feel like the best natural selection in the market right now.

Deals of the Day:

* The parent of China Shipping Development may sell its LNG business with the parent of PetroChina to the listed vehicle, analysts said.

* China is reviewing Coca-Cola’s bid to acquire China Huiyuan Juice Group under the anti-monopoly law, Commerce Minister Chen Demin said on Tuesday.

* Santander, Spain’s biggest bank, bought out Tokio Marine Holdings’ stake in a jointly owned Brazilian insurance group for 678 million reais ($284.9 million), aiming to strengthen its position in Brazil.

* Precious metals company Hochschild Mining PLC said on Tuesday it agreed to buy Southwestern Resources for $17.5 million in cash.

(PHOTO: A forensic expert points on the image of a genetic blueprint in the DNA lab at the new building for the crime tech institute in Wiesbaden February 29, 2008. REUTERS/Alex Grimm)

(This updates an earlier post with KKR’s denial).

Maybe the days of private equity paying eye-watering prices at auction really are over.

Kohlberg Kravis Roberts has firmly denied a report in the Economist’s books and arts section saying that, despite the deep economic funk, buyout doyen Henry Kravis was behind the “startling” $28 million purchase of a vintage chair at the recent Yves Saint Laurent sale in Paris:

“Who, in the current climate, were the buyers?” the Economist asked. ”Few prices were more startling than the €22m commanded by an early 20th-century chair designed by Eileen Gray. Cheska Vallois, an Art Deco dealer, won the work in the room; it is thought that she did so on behalf of Henry and Marie-José Kravis, who had already acquired examples of Gray’s work from Ms. Vallois at the Biennale des Antiquaires in Paris.”

But this is one sales process KKR is keen to distance itself from.

“Contrary to speculation, I can categorically deny that neither Henry Kravis, nor anyone in his family, purchased the chair in question,” KKR spokesman Peter McKillop told Reuters in an email. A spokeswoman for the Economist did not immediately return an (admittedly late in the evening) request for comment.

Who was Gray anyway? As London’s Design Museum explains, Gray is “regarded as one of the most important furniture designers and architects of the early 20th century and the most influential woman in those fields.” Kravis, as you must know, was by Forbes’s reckoning the 49th richest American last year.

Morgan Stanley is bouncing back up in the global league tables for mergers advisory work after taking a hit to its rankings last year.

The investment bank has taken the No. 1 spot based on deal volume globally so far this year, according to latest Thomson Reuters data.

Morgan Stanley was one of the advisors, besides JP Morgan and Goldman Sachs, in the latest blockbuster pharma deal – the $41 billion offer for Schering-Plough by Merck. That came on top of its role as the advisor — along with Evercore — to Wyeth in the drug company’s $68 billion takeover by rival Pfizer.

The reversal of fortunes shows how a few big deals can shape M&A advisor rankings.

In 2008, Morgan Stanley missed out on the year’s largest transaction — the $113 billion spinoff of Philip Morris International. It also did not get league table credit for the second-largest — Belgian brewer InBev’s $60.4 billion purchase of Anheuser-Busch Cos.

As a result it slipped to No. 5 in worldwide M&A last year from the No. 2 spot it had held since 2005 behind Goldman Sachs, according to Thomson Reuters data.

(Photo: Undated handout image of cholesterol drug Zetia. REUTERS/Courtesy of Merck/Handout)