Social media giant Facebook acquired New York, US-based social conversations platform Branch Media in a deal reportedly worth $15 million to form a Facebook Conversations group.

Investors pulled out money from hedge funds at the fastest rate for more than four years in December, following a year in which many managers' performance disappointed, new data showed on Monday.

The Government Accountability Office said the spinoff of SAIC Inc invalidated the health services contract awarded to it by the National Aeronautics Space Administration, Bloomberg reported.

Charter Communications Inc has made a formal offer for the third time to acquire Time Warner Cable but the bid was rejected. The company now intends to take the offer straight to the shareholders of Time Warner Cable, Reuters reported.

California, US-based call marketing company Invoca raised $20 million in a Series C funding round led by Accel Partners for its workforce expansion and product development.

Institutional investors contributed $216.56 billion to US private equity funds last year, a sign of their renewed confidence in the asset class, a report from Private Equity Beat of The Wall Street Journal Blogs said.

Globalive's Wind Mobile has pulled out from a major Canadian wireless spectrum auction after its European backer Vimpelcom Ltd opted not to finance its participation.

Isabel Lerer, the daughter of Huffington Post co-founder Ken Lerer, launched her new animal-focused news site The Dodo after securing $2 million in a seed funding round led by Lerer Ventures.

Cogeco Cable's recent acquisitions helped spur the quarterly profit of the Canadian cable company that provides cable television and internet and phone services to an 18% increase, Reuters reported.

New York, US-based activist investor Jana Partners LLC hiked its stake in Colorado-based oil producer QEP Resources Inc from 7.6% to 9.5% on Monday, and announced its plan to nominate board candidates for the company.