Saturday Papers: Avis Europe plans to raise £151m to expand in China - bid news and gossip

Financial Times

* Avis Europe plans to raise £151m to expand in China; its shares fell 18 per cent.

* Lions Gate in discussions over MGM merger.

* The BBC move to integrate online video and TV passed its final hurdle.

* Nomura has disclosed pay for senior executives, which shows a shift towards performance-based salaries; the company pays chief $3.3m.

* India’s Ambani brothers reached a new gas supply agreement, settling the issue at the centre of a family feud.

* Morgan Stanley on Thursday agreed to pay $102m to settle a suit brought by the state of Massachusetts charging that it had provided financing for predatory subprime loans.

* Problems surrounding the $2.2bn sale of AIG’s Taiwan insurance unit intensified on Friday after it emerged that the deal’s major local backer had pulled out of the deal.

* Coca-Cola saw “phenomenal” results from its first experiment with paid advertising on Twitter, the drinks company’s digital marketing chief told; it saw 86m “impressions” or views of the ads in 24 hours, said Carol Kruse, vice-president for global interactive marketing at Coca-Cola.

The Times

* Downing Street has chosen Stephen Green, the chairman of HSBC, and Andrew Witty, the chief executive of GlaxoSmithKline, as Britain’s representatives to the Business20.

* Berkeley reported better than expected annual results with pre-tax profits of £110.3 million in the year to April 30 - down by 8.4 per cent on a year earlier.