VENTURE CAPITAL POST

Blackstone Group LP's decision to sell its La Quinta Inns & Suites hotel chain was reportedly done in order to obtain higher returns as oppose to conducting a private sale, sources said to Bloomberg.

In order to comply with competition issues surrounding its July acquisition of Whyte & Mackay owner United Spirits Limited, Diageo PLC offered to sell majority of the latter's distilleries.

Although Dubai seemed to have recovered from the 2009 debt crisis it experienced in 2009, it needs to sell some of its assets, including Mauser, to repay some USD50 million in debt, according to sources who told Reuters.

Chemring Group, a UK based firm that caters to the ordinance disposal, pyrotechnics, countermeasures and munitions markets, said it will be divesting some of its business units.

France-based phone firm Orange is nearing an agreement to exit its unit to Luxembourg-based cable and telecommunications investor Altice, according to sources interviewed by Bloomberg.

Drayton McLane Jr, Comcast and NBC Universal said that Jim Crane's claim that they cheated him out of the acquisition deal of US professional baseball team the Houston Astros was ludicrous.

IK Investment Partners had sold its full ownership in Europe Snacks Group to a French private equity firm Apax Partners for an undisclosed amount and will be completed before the year ends.

The fate of the joint venture firm of Founder Securities and Credit Suisse have yet to be known after the former reveals its plans to sell its stake in the joint venture and merge with China Minzu Securities.

Mexican homebuilder Consorcio Ara and real estate firm O'Connor Capital Partners plan to sell nine shopping malls for USD 384 million, according to sources interviewed by Bloomberg.

Three unnamed sources told Bloomberg that Deutsche Telekom AG was approaching to close the sale of its digital-classifieds business Scout24 Holding to Hellman & Friedman LLC for EUR2 billion or USD2.7 billion, including debt.

The potential sale of the indices platform of Barclays, which includes the Barclays US Aggregate Bond Index, came at the heels of an approach by MSCI, an equity index provider, to acquire the index business.

Prior to meeting with UK's Members of the Parliament regarding claims that Royal Mail's shares in its initial public offering were undervalued, UBS issued a note to investors saying that they need to divest their shares in the postal service.

Tekni-Plex, one of the largest specialty plastic films makers in North America, was acquired by private equity firm American Securities from two other private equity firms who had majority ownership stakes in Tekni-Plex for the last five years.

Antony Leung, the Greater China Chairman of Blackstone Group, would be making an exit from the private equity company to become the Chief Executive Officer of Nan Fung Group Holdings Ltd.

Investment firms Ardian and Consilium SGR exited Rollon Group to Chequers Capital and IGI SGR for an undisclosed amount. Rollon is a maker of linear rails and actuators based in Italy.