MTN Group of South Africa confirms it is in talks with Orascom Telecom’s parent Weather Investments to buy the Egyptian firm — or some of its assets. The discussions may or may not lead to a deal, MTN has said. No small beer: a sale could be worth up to $10 billion. Orascom could then sell some of the assets back, lowering the final deal value to around $8 billion, sources have previously told us.

Bharti Airtel — which made two failed attempts at taking over MTN to then buy the Africa assets of Kuwait’s Zain — is saying it may close the deal with Zain early. There were still some doubts in the market about legal or regulatory hurdles in Africa.

Late on Tuesday, British private equity firm Candover Investments said it had received an initial approach. A source tells us the bidder is Canadian pension fund Alberta Investment Management Co. Today, fund firm F&C Asset Management says it would buy its peer Thames River for 53.6 million pounds.

For all other Reuters stories on deals, click here. In other media:

Mexico’s Cemex, the world’s No. 3 cement maker, is in talks to buy a stake in south India-based Penna Cement, the Times of India reports.  Story here.

A former shareholder of Russian fertiliser producer UralChem Holding has asked the UK’s Financial Services Authority to stop the company’s public offering, according to a story in UK newspaper the Times.

Japan’s Mitsubishi Heavy Industries is in talks to buy an over 2 percent stake in French partner Areva for more than 40 billion yen ($430 million), the Nikkei business daily reports. Reuters story here.

India’s UltraTech Cement is set to acquire a 51-percent stake in Dubai-based Star Cement for an undisclosed sum, which will give it access to Asian and African markets, the Mint newspaper says.

“Shitty” is such an under-used word on TV and in the stately halls of Capitol Hill, except today as senators – especially Carl Levin —  grilled Goldman Sachs executives on their role in the sub-prime mortgage meltdown. “Shitty” and its second cousin “crappy” are flying all over the place thanks to an e-mail in which Goldman Sachs employees used the phrase “shitty deal.”

This presented a dilemma for news organizations, many of which have been live blogging the hearing. Let’s check in and see how shitty goes down in the various style guides.  (It  goes without saying, shitty is acceptable over here.)

At The Washington Post, Frank Ahrens refrains from using the word straight out and instead goes with the demure “s****y deal.”  But, way down in the tags,  someone thinks the style is stuffy and manages to sneak in the full monty.

The New York Times doesn’t even bother with **** and trips all over itself to describe the situation as only the Times can do in this Caucus blog post about the very word: “Not once, not twice, but about eight times did Senator Carl Levin use a vulgar term during a Senate hearing today with Goldman Sachs executives — a term we can’t even partially spell out here, because of The Times’s  strict rules on proper language.”

Fetch my smelling salts.

You think The Wall Street Journal, under News Corp’s ownership,  would throw the style book to the wind? No such luck. They opt for the dashes, “sh – y.”

Heh. The FT, on the other hand,  has no problem.

BloombergBusinessWeek?  Check!

Prudential shares rise — modestly — after UK newspaper reports that its largest shareholder — Capital Group – is working on a plan to split the group up. The U.S. investor is not happy with Pru’s planned $35.5 billion acquisition of AIA, the Asian life insurer. It is working with Clive Cowdery’s acquisition vehicle Resolution, insurer Aviva and a third, unknown group, the reports say. An unlikely scenario? Perhaps, but it does show some serious discontent among shareholders.

HSBC has denied talk in the market that it may renew its bid for a $3.9 billion stake in Korea Exchange Bank. When asked whether the bank was bidding for LoneStar’s KEB, the bank’s Chief Executive Michael Geoghegan said: “No, we are not”. Right, that’s settled then.

Deutsche lends credibility to its ambitious targets with quarterly earnings that beat forecasts. The earnings benefit from strong results in debt trading — and the absence of markdowns in areas such as leveraged loans. More on investment banking later, when Goldman Sachs appears before the U.S. Senate.

For all other Reuters stories about deals & investment banking, click here. In other media (some links may require subscription rights):

Cemex, the world’s No. 3 cement maker, is considering selling off minority stakes in some of its operations worldwide, in a bid to cut its debt, the Financial Times says.

South Korea’s National Pension Service (NPS) is likely to participate in acquisitions of Korea Exchange Bank  and Woori Finance Holdings as a financial investor, Yonhap reports.