It seemingly happens every Friday evening.

Federal regulators announce that some small bank cannot continue on its own and a rival is brought in to take over the assets and continue as if nothing had happened.

As the US outlook brightens and US companies look to spend some of their hoarded cash on acquisitions abroad, they have many things to ponder and prepare for, not least how takeover rules differ in other jurisdictions.

This came to the fore again recently when two UK takeover targets managed to give their respective suitors—one from the US and one from France—the cold shoulder.

Sara Lee is the latest company to break itself into two or more separate companies.

The split announcement comes in the same month that Motorola divided into two separate companies.

It is not exactly happy days here again in the venture capital world.

Sure in 2010 the number of deals rose by 6 percent, to 2,799 over 2009 and the amount of capital invested in those transactions climbed 11 percent to $26.2 billion, according to Dow Jones VentureSource.

Li Ka-Shing's Hong Kong conglomerate Hutchison Whampoa (known locally as Hutch) always tops the list of the best managed companies in Asia. This is less to do with its operational management and always to do with its financial management. Its success also flies in the face of conventional wisdom that conglomerates dilute shareholder value through a lack of focus.

M&A could see a significant uptick this year as sectors such as oil and gas, technology, and healthcare lead the way, according to Steve Krouskos, Global and Americas Markets Leader for Ernst & Young's Transaction Advisory Services.

US companies were responsible for $773 billion in M&A volumes in 2010, according to the Thomson Reuters full-year 2010 Mergers & Acquisitions review—an increase of 11% over 2009. This represents just a third of global M&A activity for the full year, however, which totalled $2.25 trillion, according to the Thomson Reuters review.

In the run up to the visit of Chinese president Hu Jintao to the US next week, government officials have been indulging in the usual round of rhetoric about the undervalued Chinese currency and how it seriously harms US business.

Today at a speech to be given at John's Hopkins University, Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner will again say that the Chinese currency is "substantially undervalued." He goes on to say that if China continues to undervalue its currency, then asset prices and inflation will rise, "which will threaten future growth."

It is getting cheaper for companies in the US and Europe to access the public equity markets, according to data from Bloomberg.

Although investment banking fees are rising globally, this is mostly being driven by big fee increases in the emerging markets—especially China. In the US equity underwriting fees have been dropping relatively steadily for a decade. However, they are still much higher than elsewhere.

Merger mania is back.

On Monday alone, two announced deals alone were valued at nearly $20 billion. Both of them are characterized as strategic.

Global sales of corporate bonds fell 18 percent to $3.19 trillion in 2010, according to Bloomberg.

However, companies whose credit ratings are below investment grade went on a borrowing binge. Junk bond issuance surged by 74 percent, to $367 billion in 2010, according to Bloomberg.