News In Brief

By Reuters

March 7, 2000

After MGM Grand Inc. sweetened its takeover bid by about $1 billion, the company reached agreement to buy rival Mirage Resorts Inc. The deal was valued at about $4.4 billion in cash, plus $2 billion in Mirage debt that MGM Grand said it will assume. The Las Vegas-based companies didn't say what role Steve Wynn, the chairman and chief executive officer of Mirage, will have.

A financial powerhouse with 9 million commercial and individual customers will result from the merger of the Danish banking/insurance giant Unidanmark and the Finnish-Swedish MeritaNordbanken, the companies announced in Copenhagen. The combined institutions will have assets of $170 billion, the largest in Scandinavia.