Tuesday Papers: TPG and Carlyle win bid war for Healthscope - bid news and gossip

Financial Times

* TPG and Carlyle on Monday won a bidding war for Healthscope, Australia’s second-largest private hospital chain, with an offer of $1.7bn; the consortium trumped a rival bid from Kohlberg Kravis Roberts.

* Carlyle has taken a controlling stake in Grupo Qualicorp, a Brazilian health service provider, in a deal with a total value of equity and debt of $1.2bn; Carlyle bought out General Atlantic, another buy-out firm which held a 40 per cent stake in Qualicorp.

* The $1.7bn macro fund Autonomy Capital is up 17 per cent so far this year, according to an investor in the fund; the $7bn BlueCrest Capital International was up 10.16 per cent as at 9 July.

* India’s takeover panel on Monday said investors who wanted to buy more than 25 per cent of a company would have to make a mandatory bid for all remaining shares in the target.

* AIA has begun talks with potential strategic investors as the Asian life assurer seeks backers to ensure it can gain independence from its US parent AIG by listing more than half its equity on the Hong Kong market.

* IBM’s revenues grew by only 2 per cent in the second quarter of the year, to $23.7bn, half the rate of growth that most analysts had been expecting; the company’s shares fell 4 per cent in after-market trading.

* Shares in Tomkins jumped by 28 per cent on Monday after the engineering group said takeover talks with a Canadian consortium, comprised of Onex and Canada Pension Plan Investment Board, were at an “advanced stage”; However, the consortium cautioned investors it might yet reduce its £2.9bn provisional offer.

The Daily Telegraph

* Ocado's initial public offering remained finely poised last night with the online retailer yet to muster enough support for all of the shares on offer.

* Google has acquired Metaweb, an internet information database company, in a bid to “improve its search” offering.

The Independent