Business news round up

Dominique Strauss-Khan stepped down as head of the IMF, following his arrest for an alleged sexual assault on a New York chambermaid. But who will succeed him at the helm of the fund?
Mr Strauss-Kahn had been expected to quit the fund in June and return to France to compete for the Socialist nomination for the French presidency; polls had suggested that, if nominated, he would beat Nicolas Sarkozy in next year’s election. With the above news and Carla Bruni producing a Sarkozy infant in her 40s, Strauss-Kahn is out of the race.

The fund has also been dealing with Greece’s financial problems. Greece is unlikely to meet the terms of its bail-out. EU ministers are considering a “soft restructuring” of its debt, by allowing the country to reschedule some repayments.

Takeda Pharmaceutical announced a deal to buy the Swiss firm Nycomed for €9.8 billion ($14 billion).

BP failed to seal a deal with Rosneft before a deadline on May 16th. The deal, struck in January, was opposed by BP’s current Russian joint-venture partners, AAR. Although most of the big issues had been resolved, including a buy-out of AAR by BP and Rosneft, the three firms couldn’t agree on all the details.

Nasdaq and ICE, two stock exchanges, withdrew an $11-billion hostile bid for NYSE Euronext, after suggestions that the takeover would throw up antitrust issues. The news leaves the path clear for Germany’s Deutsche Börse to pursue its own $10-billion offer, which NYSE accepted in February.

The London Stock Exchange is facing competition in its bid to merge with TMX, the group which operates the Toronto exchange, after Maple, a consortium of Canadian banks, topped LSE’s offer.
Britain’s Office of Fair Trading has suggested that it might refer the country’s “big four” auditors, PwC, KPMG, Deloitte and Ernst & Young, to the Competition Commission.

Yahoo! and Alibaba, a Chinese e-commerce firm, tried to call truce after a public spat. Yahoo! had complained that Alibaba, in which it has a 43% stake, had secretly transferred ownership of its online payment portal to another company controlled by Alibaba’s chairman, Jack Ma. Yahoo! claimed it had found out about the deal only in March, seven months after the event. Alibaba responded that the matter had been passed by its board, which includes a Yahoo! representative.

Sony began to restore its PlayStation Network after hackers breached its security, compromising the personal information of 100m users last month. Howard Stringer, Sony’s president predicted that cybercrime would become an increasing problem.

Despite having a cash stockpile of $37 billion, Google became the latest firm to take advantage of the low cost of borrowing by launching a $3 billion bond offering. The company said it will use the money to pay off short-term loans. Analysts also believe it will go on an expansion drive. It has been a busy week for Google, which also previewed the first laptops to run its Chrome operating system and was on the end of a PR attack from Facebook, which tried to plant nasty stories about it in the press.

Production can begin again at Saab after Pang Da, a Chinese distributor, bought 1,300 vehicles and a 24% stake in the carmaker’s parent company, Spyker. The deal, worth up to €110m ($156m), will allow Saab to reopen its plant in Sweden, which has lain idle for six weeks as it has struggled to pay suppliers. The news came after a deal with another Chinese firm, Hawtai, collapsed last week. Where does this leave Vladimir Antonov, interviewed by BB late last year, who has been propping up Spyker and hopes to take over Saab?

A resolution at McDonald’s annual shareholder meeting called on the fast-food chain to axe Ronald McDonald in an effort to stop the firm marketing to children.