Lakshmi Mittal loses bid for Nigerian oil refinery
New Delhi: Lakshmi Niwas Mittal has lost a bid for taking over Nigeria's biggest oil refinery.

The winning bid was the 561-million-dollar bid by a consortium of three Nigerian companies comprising Zenon Oil, Dangote Oil and Gas and Transnational Corp, for acquiring 51 per cent of government stake in Port Harcourt refinery, industry sources said.

The winning Blue Star consortium is a close associate of outgoing President Olusegun Obasanjo.

Two other bidders, local fuel marketer Oando and the Sahara/Refinee PetroPlus, were disqualified for not providing bank drafts to cover 50 per cent of their bid amount.

The sources said Mittal had originally planned to bid for the 2,10,000 barrels per day Port Harcourt refinery with Hindustan Petroleum Corp Ltd (HPCL) but in the end went alone.
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Microsoft to buy Web ad firm for $6 bn
Seattle: Microsoft Corp. has announced plans to buy aQuantive Inc. for $6 billion, an 85 percent premium for an independent company in a Web advertising market. This is the biggest acquisition ever made by Microsoft which would pay aQuantive shareholders $66.50 a share, a premium to the company's closing share price of $35.87 on Thursday.

Shares of aQuantive shot to $63.95 in morning Nasdaq trade while Microsoft fell 1.1 percent to $30.64.
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