VENTURE CAPITAL POST

Tanzania has held talks with France's Total (TOTF.PA) and Britain's BP (BP.L) over oil and gas exploration, its energy ministry said on Saturday, aiming to add to major companies active in its thriving energy sector.

British engineer Rolls-Royce said on Friday it has finalised a deal to create a joint venture which will design and develop accessory drive train transmissions for all of the company's future civil aircraft engines.

Auto parts maker Delphi Automotive Plc (DLPH.N) is looking to sell its business that makes heating and cooling systems for cars, and will seek as much as $1 billion, Bloomberg reported, citing people with knowledge of the matter.

Generic drugmaker Actavis Plc and France's Sanofi SA are among the suitors for privately held Omega Pharma NV [COUCKO.UL], Bloomberg reported, citing people familiar with the matter.

French telecoms group Orange (ORAN.PA) has lowered the threshold of shareholder backing it needs in order for its 3.4 billion euro ($4.36 billion) offer to buy Spanish operator Jazztel (JAZ.MC) to go through.

South Africa has signed a nuclear power agreement with France, the government said on Friday, three weeks after it reached a similar deal with Russia as part of Pretoria's first tentative steps towards building up to 9,600 MW of nuclear power.

Air France-KLM is pressing ahead with expansion of its low cost brand in France and has a back-up plan if a deadlock with pilots continues, its Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Alexandre de Juniac said in an interview published on Sunday.

France will tax drugmakers whose costly hepatitis C drugs threaten to throw off course its healthcare budget, the government has said, heaping pressure on pharmaceutical companies like Gilead Sciences to cut their prices.

Italian tycoon Andrea Bonomi has written to directors of his bid target Club Mediterranee (CMIP.PA) asking for updated financial information, a letter seen by Reuters shows, in a sign he still hopes to win control of the French holiday company.

Venerable old airlines Lufthansa (LHAG.DE) and Air France (AIRF.PA) know the smart money is in the low-cost market –Ryanair (RYA.I) raised its forecasts again on Thursday - but powerful labor unions are keeping them from the bounty.

Germany and France will try to reconcile divergent visions of how to fix Europe's economy on Monday when Manuel Valls makes his first visit to Berlin as French prime minister and holds talks with Angela Merkel.

French media group Vivendi has finalised an agreement to sell its Brazilian broadband business GVT to Spain's Telefonica for cash and shares worth around 7.2 billion euros ($9.29 billion), the companies announced on Friday.

Asian shares held firm while the euro hit one-year lows on Tuesday as investors increasingly expect the European Central Bank to expand liquidity as soon as next week to boost the sagging euro zone economy.

U.S. stocks advanced on Monday, with the Dow Industrials up roughly one percent, as the threat of an escalation of tensions in Ukraine appeared to wane and the latest flurry of merger action supported equities.

Telecoms operator Orange's investment in faster fiber and mobile broadband networks in its French home market has started to pay off, as its high-end focus insulates it from cut- price fixed plans offered by rival Bouygues.