Markets & Finance

Bid & Ask: The Week's Deals

1. To help pay down debt, Electricité de France sold its stake in German utility EnBW to the state of Baden-Württemberg for $6.2 billion.

2. PepsiCo (PEP) is buying control of Russia's Wimm-Bill-Dann Dairy and Juice (WBD) for $3.8 billion in a bid to keep up with Coca-Cola's (KO) gains in that country.

3. In the largest transaction among U.S. gas utilities this year, Atlanta's AGL Resources (ATG) offered $2.4 billion in cash and stock for Illinois' Nicor (GAS).

4. BTG Pactual, the Brazilian investment bank controlled by billionaire André Esteves, sold a $1.8 billion stake to a group of investors that includes the Rothschild and Agnelli families, U.S. investment firm J.C. Flowers, and sovereign wealth funds from China, Singapore, and Abu Dhabi.

5. De La Rue, the world's top printer of banknotes, rejected a $1.4 billion takeover approach from rival François-Charles Oberthur Fiduciaire.

6. Russia's largest retailer, X5 Retail Group, is acquiring discounter Kopeyka for $1.1 billion. Kopeyka had previously been in talks with Wal-Mart Stores (WMT).

7. John C. Malone's Liberty Global (LBTYA) paid $802 million for Polish cable-TV operator Aster, its second cable acquisition in the country.

8. In the latest deal spurred by health-care reform in the U.S., insurer Aetna (AET) is paying $500 million for Medicity, which sells technology that helps hospitals and physicians exchange medical data.

9. A copy of John James Audubon's illustrated Birds of America fetched $11.5 million in London, a record for a printed book at auction.

10. Bordeaux wines from the prized 2000 vintage fetched top prices at a Sotheby's (BID) auction in New York, including $72,600 for a case of Pétrus. All of the wines carried tamperproof traceability seals courtesy of seller BWB Group.

Lindblad is an associate news editor for Bloomberg Businessweek.

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