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Builders' merchant Travis Perkins has agreed to purchase plumbing and heating company BSS Group for £557.6 million.

The cash and shares deal values BSS shares at 435.8 pence, a 4.7% premium on Friday's closing price of 416.2p. It is the largest acquisition by Travis Perkins since the £950 million takeover of the Wickes DIY chain in 2005.

The proposed acquisition will expand URS’s infrastructure capabilities in the UK across a range of markets, including rail and transit, transportation infrastructure, and ports and harbors.

Ram Power, Corp. is a renewable energy company based in Reno, Nevada, focused on developing, owning and operating geothermal power plants. It was founded in 2008 as Ram Power, Inc., by former senior executives from Ormat Technologies, which is also in the business of geothermal energy development. “We decided to form Ram Power because we wanted to have a piece of the action, and working at Ormat wasn’t as much fun as it used to be years earlier,” says executive vice president Dan Schochet, whose primary responsibility is business development.

Like many an African mining operation, Zimplats’ Ngezi mine lies in splendid isolation, 150 kilometres south-west of Zimbabwe’s capital Harare and is surrounded by...bush! Even though there is no expat workforce to push costs up, this remote location means that Zimplats has had to put in place competitive conditions of service in order to retain the full gamut of mining, engineering, geology and metallurgical skills it needs to keep the largest platinum resource in the country running effectively.

Germany-based BASF will buy Cognis from its owners—the US investment bank Goldman Sachs and the UK private equity group Permira—at an equity purchasing price of €700 million.

BASF said that it expects the household products additives maker to help it weather economic turbulence. BASF's core chemicals and plastics business currently relies on industries such as automotive and construction, both of which have been hit hard by the global economic crisis.

The merger will create a major Canadian-American player in the world of specialty pharmaceutical companies. Retaining the Valeant name, it will focus on four areas, including treatments for the skin and for neurology, and is expected to realize more than $175 million in cost savings by the second year.

National Starch, a subsidiary of the former UK group ICI, was taken over by Netherlands-based AkzoNobel as part of its acquisition of ICI in January 2008, but isn't considered part of AkzoNobel's core business. AkzoNobel is the largest coatings and specialty chemicals company in the world.
In 2009 National Starch had revenue of $1.2 billion from sales of specialty starches to local and multinational customers in the food, papermaking, consumer and industrial markets. With 2,250 employees around the world, it operates 11 plants in eight countries.

Building on the brand
Indian property developer Godrej Properties is gearing up for its next phase of expansion. Managing director Milind Korde explains to Gay Sutton how good communications and long-term partnerships lie at the heart of its operations.
Much has been written about the miracle of the Indian economy and its rise to become one of the major global powers of the 21st century. Boosted by economic reform, Indian industries and businesses are emerging as power houses on the world stage, while segments of the community are experiencing dramatic cultural and lifestyle changes. These changes are easily visible—if you were to look at the skyline of Mumbai today, you could be forgiven for wondering if you were looking at Manhattan or Hong Kong.

A journey, not a destination
As part of the renowned Tata Group, Voltas Limited has improvement in its DNA but as its vice president of Business Excellence Prashant Karkare explains to John O’Hanlon, its definition of this word extends far beyond financial results and reaches deep into Indian society at large.
Voltas is a diverse engineering group, publicly quoted and India’s largest exporter of electromechanical projects—recent major examples include the world’s tallest building Burj Khalifa, where Voltas installed HVAC, plumbing and electrical systems, and Ferrari’s massive new theme park in Dubai where the company won the $330 million contract for the electromechanical work.

Hidden talents
A strategic decision to widen its operational scope has unearthed new mining opportunities for one company, as Jeff Daniels learns.
It takes a certain type of person to leave terra firma and choose a career in the navy. And the qualities suited for roaming the oceans of the world are as different again when it comes to choosing to go below the surface and become a submariner.