Saturday Papers: RBS in talks with US buyout firms over GMS - bid news and gossip

Financial Times

* RBS has started exclusive talks with Advent International and Bain Capital to sell its Global Merchant Services payment processing business in a deal worth about £2.5bn.

* Sanofi-Aventis, the French drugs group, has made a preliminary takeover approach to Genzyme, the US biotech
 group with a market value of about $14bn.

* Dana Petroleum’s largest shareholder has urged it to negotiate with South Korea’s national oil company after Dana failed to respond to a £1.65bn offer.

* General Electric yesterday unexpectedly increased its quarterly dividend by 20 per cent in an effort to show that the conglomerate is over the worst of the financial crisis.
 

* Telecoms group Verizon said it had swung to a loss after it took a $2.3bn charge for shedding 11,000 jobs.

* Zamin, a Brazilian iron ore company, is considering a London flotation; the firm's value would likely range at $2bn-$2.5bn.

* Nova Ljubljanska Banka, Slovenia’s biggest bank, said on Friday it would seek €400m in fresh capital via a rights issue.

* Greece’s biggest bank on Friday shored up its balance sheet with a €450m fundraising, just hours before the publication of the European-wide bank stress tests.

* JFE Holdings, the Japanese steelmaker, plans to invest about $1bn in India’s JSW Steel for a minority stake, souces said.

The Daily Telegraph

* Schroders, the largest investor in Dana Petroleum, has urged the oil company's board to consider a £1.7bn possible offer from the Korea National Oil Company.