Acquisition | featured news

According to internal documents obtained by the website TechCrunch, Microsoft has offered $1 billion for the digital assets of Nook Media, Barnes & Noble's digital book venture. According to internal documents obtained by the website TechCrunch, Microsoft has offered $1 billion for the digital assets of Nook Media, Barnes & Noble's digital book venture.

Germany drug company Bayer AG says it intends to buy California-based Conceptus to expand its birth control offerings. Bayer said Monday it would launch a pupublicblic offer to pay $31.00 per share for all the stock in Conceptus, Inc. That means Bayer would pay $1.1 billion. Conceptus makes Essure, an irreversible birth control method in which metal and polyester coils are inserted to block a woman's fallopian tubes. The procedure can be done in 10 minutes a doctor's office.

Content has become a large initiative on LinkedIn’s web property, but it hasn’t translated as well to its mobile apps. More users are shifting to mobile, and as the Pulse team was mostly focused on mobile, they can contribute to LinkedIn’s content efforts specifically on mobile platforms.

Dish Network Corp, the No. 2 U.S. satellite television provider, on Monday offered to buy wireless service provider Sprint Nextel Corp for $25.5 billion in cash and stock, a move that could inspire other telecommunications or video companies to consider their own prospects of combining.

Dish Network Corp. is trying to snag U.S. wireless carrier Sprint Nextel Corp. away from its Japanese suitor in recognition of the way satellite dishes are losing their relevance in the age of cellphones that play YouTube videos.

German investor Joh A Benckiser (JAB) is to buy the owner of Douwe Egberts coffee in a 7.5-billion-euro ($9.8 billion) deal to create a global hot drinks empire aimed at taking on market leaders Nestle and Mondelez.

After last years' talk of Facebook wanting to acquire WhatsApp, a new report states that Google is interested in buying the popular messenger service. According to DigitalTrends, which is quoting inside sources, WhatsApp is in the negotiating phase over prices with Google. The report states that the deal started four or five weeks ago and adds that WhatsApp is “playing hardball” and jockeying for a higher acquisition price, which currently is “close to” $1 billion right now.

General Electric Co is buying oilfield pump maker Lufkin Industries Inc for $2.98 billion, sharply increasing its presence in the fast-growing market to extract oil and natural gas from shale rock, the conglomerate said on Monday.

Arthur Frommer, the avuncular, erudite travel icon who 57 years ago inspired a generation of cost-conscious Americans to pack their bags with Europe on 5 Dollars a Day, is taking back control of his travel guidebook brand from Google and intends to resume publishing Frommer guidebooks.

Nasdaq OMX Group Inc agreed to buy electronic Treasuries-trading platform eSpeed from BGC Partners Inc for $750 million in cash, providing the exchange operator an entry into one of the world's largest and most liquid cash markets.