Monday Papers: Advent to sell or float retailer Takko - bid news and gossip

Financial Times

* Takko Fashion, one of Germany’s biggest fast-growing discount clothing chains, is to be sold or floated on the stock market with a value of about €1.25bn, generating big profits for Advent International.

* Paternoster, the specialist pensions business set up by former Prudential executive Mark Wood, has been put up for sale, with its original backers facing the potential loss of more than half their £500m equity investment.

* Investors in Marshall Wace’s £200m listed investment fund were poised on Monday to vote for the delisting of the vehicle.

* RSA has commitments from three leading investment banks that they could raise at least £5bn in equity for the UK’s largest general insurer if it can pursue its bid for the UK, Canada and Ireland operations of Aviva’s general insurance division.

* Budweiser, Coca-Cola and McDonald’s have lauded their sponsorships of the Fifa World Cup this summer, claiming the costly investment proved a resounding success.

* Vedanta Resources, India’s largest mining company, was on Sunday night putting the finishing touches to a plan to take a 51% stake in Cairn India, a subsidiary of British oil explorer Cairn Energy.

* Gabon, a small west African oil-producer seeking to emerge from decades of dictatorship, is planning $4.5bn of agriculture and infrastructure ventures in what would rank among the biggest investment packages by Asian powers in Africa.

* BAA and the Unite union will meet today in an effort to avert a potentially crippling strike by airport workers.

* Government plans for the NHS after 2012 have thrown the service into turmoil, with concerns on all sides.

* Lending under the flagship support scheme for small UK companies has fallen nearly 60% in the past 12 months, heightening concerns about the scheme and low levels of business finance.

* The purchase by Novartis of Nestlé’s stake in Swiss eyecare group Alcon has not been smooth.