Business Diary: Deal or no deal gloom at LSE

Times are tough at the London Stock Exchange. A couple of months ago, the bourse thought it had pulled off a coup by announcing the takeover of TMX, the Canadian exchange. Within hours, the deal was left looking distinctly small fry after NYSE Euronext and Deutsche Bourse announced a mega merger, and now it looks as if it may not even get TMX thanks to a late bid from a rival in Canada. To add insult to injury, LSE officials were forced to spend the bank holiday weekend scrambling to deny rumours it is poised to do another deal following erroneous reports that it has bid for LCH Clearnet, the European clearing house.

Chinese investors have a lot of bottle

The Chinese are buying everything that moves in Europe just now and French wine is no exception. Chinese investors have just paid £135,000 for a six litre bottle of 1961 Chateau Latour and £44,000 for a six-litre bottle of the 1982 vintage from the same vineyard. Asian investors have previously been more interested in Chateau Lafite, but appear to be branching out.

Don't upset Deutsche Bank

Planning on doing business with Deutsche Bank any time soon? Probably best not to muck anyone at the bank around – you never know what they might have in their jacket. One of the bank's senior staffers has just been arrested at Hong Kong airport after a gun was found in his luggage. Apparently, the bank regards the arrest as a personal matter. Still, err on the safe side next time you think about crossing one of its bankers.

News that went by without a tweet

Not everyone is convinced Twitter can make a go of things financially – still its purchase of TweetDeck, the London-based company, last week offers some encouragement. Not that you'd know it – the deal was done days before anyone got round to tweeting the news officially, which is curious given that social networking sites are all about sharing information quickly. Still TweetDeck has already helped Twitter by showing how popular the site can be. TweetDeck's followers have rocketed following the deal, so concerned are users that the company's new parent might change it for the worse.

businessdiary@independent.co.uk