Saturday Papers: Hg Capital offers £153m for Group NBT - tips, comment and bids

Financial Times

* Hg Capital has made a £153 million cash offer for Group NBT.

* Melrose has begun to sound out shareholders in Charter International about scuppering Colfax’s recommended £1.5 billion offer for the FTSE 250 engineering company.

* British Airways has struck a deal to buy sought-after take-off and landing slots at London’s Heathrow airport from BMI, Lufthansa’s loss-making UK subsidiary.

* Foster’s this week became the latest brewer to be gulped down by a bigger rival when London-listed SABMiller paid A$10.8 billion for the Australian group’s equity.

* Tiffany & Co, the US luxury jewellery retailer, is prepared to be more aggressive in financing diamond mines around the world in return for preferential access to supplies in the face of high prices.

* BP is seeking to drill its first exploration well in the Gulf of Mexico since the devastating Macondo disaster.

* Groupon has changed the way it presents its revenue, slashing its top-line sales figure by more than half ahead of a much-anticipated initial public offering.

* Sinclair IS Pharma has expressed confidence of having laid the foundations for solid growth after the rapid integration of IS Pharma, as the specialist pharmaceutical company reported a jump in full-year revenues.

* The London Metal Exchange on Friday became the latest exchange to be swept up in consolidation when it said it had “received several expressions of interest with regard to potential strategic transactions”.