Morgan Stanley has found buyers for its stake in Chinese investment bank China International Capital Corp, CICC Chairman Li Jiange says. The firms have reached a consensus regarding the stake sale and the deal was awaiting regulatory approval.

UK defence services firm VT Group walks away from bidding for smaller rival Mouchel, leaving it free to focus on its own takeover defence from Babcock.

In other news:

China Development Bank, a powerful, state-owned Chinese bank, says it will review its strategic tie-up with Barclays, including its equity stake in the British bank after more than two years in a low-profile relationship.

British publishing group Pearson Plc has shortlisted three private equity teams and one trade firm as bidders for financial market data provider Interactive Data Corp, the Financial Times reports.

China’s Bright Food Group will sweeten its offer to buy Australian CSR’s sugar business and hopes to complete the deal by the end of the year, the China Daily reports.

For other M&A and corporate finance news reported elsewhere, click here.

Sovereign wealth funds are finding new territories to play in, pension woes are creating deal-making opportunities and investors suddenly find themselves wielding new-found power.  Those are some of the themes spotlighted on the last day of the Reuters Private Equity and Hedge Funds Summit.

Here is a selection of the best from the summit:

Hedgies, private equity dance to investors’ tune
Buyout exec Moulton says pension woes drive deals
Search for growth seen driving mergers
SWFs muscling in on funds business

From around the Web:

True Love: Who Wants to Buy JDate? (WSJ)
“Spark says it is reviewing the proposal. In the end it will depend on whether it takes its own advice and gives up the single life.” – WSJ

A Unique Chapter Rather Than New Playbook for Coke’s Operating Model (Seeking Alpha)
“Capital intensive businesses are not inherently inferior so long as they can earn a rate of return in excess of their cost of capital.” – Value Expectations via Seeking Alpha

Highlights from February’s “monthly snapshot” of M&A and capital-markets activity from the team who compile investment-banking data for Thomson Reuters:

Capital Markets Bullets:

· Global DCM Activity Down 34% – For February global DCM activity reached $402.9 billion down 34% when compared with last month, year-to-date activity for debt capital markets is also down 15% overall when compared with the same period last year with $1,197 billion. Activity this month was driven by Federal Credit Agencies and Sovereign debt worth $162.9 billion approximately 40% of the total activity. US DCM drove activity with 43.4% in February.

· Global Investment Grade Corporate Debt down 34.5% – February global investment grade corporate debt reached $158.7 billion down 34% when compared with last month, it is at its lowest monthly level since December 2009. The US was the most active issuer nation for February maintaining its number one position since December 2008.

· US Floating Rate Notes at 20 month high – U.S. investment grade floating rate note activity reached a 20 month high with $12 billion, it is also at it highest percentage of total U.S. investment grade issuance since September 2008 with 22%.

· Global ECM Activity doubles – Global equity capital market issuance through to February 2010 totals $88.2 billion, double the level of activity compared with the same period last year. Equity capital market has seen activity increase in every region when compared with the first 2 months of 2009. So far the beginning of this year has also been the most active for equity issuance since the beginning of 2008.

· Follow-on offerings up 52% – so far this year follow-on activity reached $58 billion and are up 52% when compared with the same period last year, accounting for 66% of this year’s proceeds. The largest ECM issue for February is a US Follow-On issued by PNC Financial Services valued at $3 billion.

· IPO activity for the beginning of the year is at its highest level since 2007 – year to date IPO activity is worth $20 billion its highest level since the beginning of 2007. Central Asia/Asia Pacific is the most active region for IPOs for this month with 74% market share up from 16% for the same period last year. This marks the most active start to the year for this region in the last decade.  Financials and healthcare account for over 64% of the all the IPO activity for this month.

· Loan activity down 14% – Loan activity totalled $63.6 billion for February 2010, down 14% from the previous month, but a slight increase compared to February 2009.  For year-to-date 2010, global syndicated lending is down 22% compared to last year at this time.  Borrowers in the industrials, financials and energy and power sectors account for 49% of overall loan activity this year. Sumitomo issued the largest loan in February this year it is also the largest Japanese issue year-to-date.

M&A Bullets:

· Worst Start of the Year for Europe since 2002 – Announced European targeted M&A is down for the 3rd consecutive month to 10 month low $27bln in February, marking the slowest start of the year ($55 billion) since 2002 ( $40 billion).

· U.S. M&A Hits 19 Month High in February – Announced US targeted M&A reached $106 billion in February, the highest level of monthly activity since July 2008 ($137 billion). US M&A bounces back to year on year positive growth (up 46%) after a disappointing January. 8 of the 10 largest transactions of February targeted U. S. companies.

· Emerging Markets Attract and Initiate Over a Third of Global M&A – Announced M&A targeting emerging markets reached $122 billion so far in 2010 and account for a record 36% of globally announced M&A, up from 20% in 2009. Meanwhile, from an acquirer point of view, emerging markets have grown their market share to 33% in 2010 up from 20% for the whole of 2009.

When activist hedge fund Elliott Associates made its unsolicited offer for business software maker Novell public on Tuesday, the thinking among analysts and reporters was that Elliott didn’t t really intend to buy the company, but rather force it into running a sale process and eventually finding a bigger tech company — like an HP or a Microsoft — to buy it. That may well be how it plays out, but Elliott spokesman Scott Tagliarino said that the firm is dead serious about its offer.

In fact, Elliott is no stranger to this type of deal, having made similar offers to a handful of small tech companies in the past. Typically, it owns large stakes in the companies it goes after. Last year, it was part of a private equity team that acquired MSC Software for about $360 million.

Elliott also offered to buy Packeteer, another small Nasdaq-listed tech company it owned a large stake in, but it was eventually acquired by Blue Coat Systems in 2008. Another company Elliott went after was Epicor Software, but that bid was unsuccessful.

In 2006, Elliott was part of a group led by tech-focused private equity firm Francisco Partners that took bar-code scanner maker Metrologic private. Two years later, Honeywell acquired Metrologic for $720 million.

Novell seems to be the biggest tech company Elliott has gone after. What does the future hold for the company? Clearly, the market is expecting more, given that shares are trading today at $6.02, up nearly 27 percent. Elliott’s offer is for $5.75 per share, or about $2 billion. Expect a lot of back-and-forth on this one.