VENTURE CAPITAL POST

Hutchison Whampoa Ltd (0013.HK) is expected to finalize a deal to buy Telefonica SA's (TEF.MC) British mobile unit O2 for 10.5 billion pounds ($15.70 billion) as early as Tuesday morning, the Financial Times reported.

U.S. private equity fund KKR has bought British rail ticket website thetrainline.com from buyout firm Exponent for an undisclosed sum, derailing its planned London stock market listing, the funds said on Thursday.

Myanmar, Haiti and Mali were ranked the least open and transparent countries in a global index of government data released on Tuesday, which found that most governments do not make official data openly available to the public.

New York City regained its top position among global commercial real estate buyers, unseating London and highlighting the appeal of U.S. properties in general, according to a survey of international investors released Tuesday.

Standard Chartered (STAN.L) has agreed to sell its Hong Kong-based consumer finance business to a consortium that includes Pepper Australia Pty Ltd and a Chinese group, in a deal estimated between $600 million to $700 million, two people with knowledge of the deal said.

British carrier Flybe Group (FLYB.L) will exit its Finnish joint venture with Finnair (FIA1S.HE) after the companies failed to agree on how to increase the unit's profitability, Finnair said on Wednesday.

UK lender Virgin Money is seeking to go ahead with its postponed London stock market listing amid firmer market conditions by the end of next week, two sources familiar with the matter said on Monday.

British insurer Standard Life (SL.L) and Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (ICBC) (601398.SS) said on Wednesday they had agreed to look at developing savings and investment services together.

General Motors Co said on Friday it was recalling 524,384 cars and sport utility vehicles globally in two actions dealing with potential latch problems and loose parts and would stop sales of two new truck models with potential air bag defects.

The British pound rose sharply after the Scottish independence vote indicated Scotland would remain in the United Kingdom, while Wall Street's overnight gains and Alibaba Group's red-hot initial public offering underpinned Asian shares.

The U.S. dollar was holding broad-based gains in Asia on Tuesday in a boon for shares of Japanese exporters but a burden for oil, gold and stocks in the energy majors.

Facebook Inc is expanding its new video advertisingservice, allowing marketers to show the television-like spots to users of the social network in Britain, Brazil and five other countries, the company told Reuters.

Mountain View, US-based business-oriented social networking service LinkedIn already reached the 300-million mark in registered users worldwide, with half of that number coming from countries outside of its home country.

UK's Cineworld Group will acquire Polish movie theater chain Cinema City International for a little over £500 million, becoming the new cinema mogul in Europe. If the deal pushes through, Cineworld will have 201 cinemas with 1,852 screens.

Private equity firm CVC Capital Partners will invest over $200 million for a stake in Chinese education company EIC Group. CVC will buy the stake from rival investment firm Actis Capital.