Intel Corp. agreed to buy McAfee Inc. for $7.68 billion, its biggest-ever acquisition, adding security software to its chipmaking arsenal.

McAfee investors will receive $48 a share in cash, Santa Clara, California-based Intel, the world’s largest chipmaker, said in a statement today. That’s 60 percent more than McAfee’s closing price yesterday. Both boards have unanimously approved the deal, Intel said.

The acquisition of McAfee, which trails Symantec Corp. in security software, will give Intel an advantage over other chip companies that must use outside security programs, said Hans Mosesmann, an analyst at Raymond James Associates in St. Petersburg, Florida. The deal also helps Intel expand beyond PCs as Chief Executive Officer Paul Otellini is trying to break into mobile handsets and grow in other portable devices.

“Their ability to be successful in the non-PC market, and even in the PC market, is going to depend more on system solutions, and security is becoming a really big deal,” said Mosesmann. “The security threats that are out there are not going away -- you could argue that they are going to get worse - - and having a tightly coupled hardware and software is a strategic advantage.”

There were eight new law firm combinations announced in the United States in the first quarter of the year, with three of them involving Philadelphia law firms, according to consultancy Altman Weil’s MergerLine Web site.

Newtown Square-based Altman Weil said data show a continuing slowdown of mergers that began in 2009.

“Although we’re seeing a lot more interest in mergers and acquisitions behind the scenes this year, it will take some time for law firms to shift gears from the internal crisis management focus of 2009 back to an outwardly facing, strategic stance,” Altman Weil principal Tom Clay said. “There will be a ramp-up period in the next few quarters before we see the pace of deal-making increase significantly.”

Of the eight law firm combinations announced this year, all involved the acquisition of firms with fewer than 50 lawyers, and five were acquisitions of firms with under 10 lawyers.

The largest acquisition of the first quarter was 245-lawyer, Morristown N.J.-based McElroy Deutsch’s acquisition of 45-lawyer Pepe & Hazard, based in Hartford, Conn. McElroy Deutsch entered the Philadelphia market in 2006 through the acquisition of Monteverde McAlee & Hurd.

RCN, the cable operator, said on Friday that it has agreed to sell itself to the private equity firm ABRY Partners for $1.2 billion, including debt, as the leveraged buyout industry continues to get back to business.

ABRY, a media and telecom specialist based in Boston, will pay $15 a share in cash, a 22 percent premium over Thursday’s closing price.

Private equity firms have been more active this year as they finally put their billions of dollars in untapped funds to use. Earlier this week, Bain Capital agreed to pay $1.63 billion to acquire a unit of Dow Chemicals, and last week CKE Restaurants reached an accord to sell itself to THL Partners for $928 million.
One of the main enablers for the upswing in private equity activity has been the opening up of the credit markets and the willingness of banks to lend to riskier transactions again. ABRY said that it has lined up financing from SunTrust Robinson Humphrey, General Electric’s GE Capital and Societe Generale, among other firms.

Shares in RCN, which provides cable TV and broadband services in the Washington, Philadelphia, New York City, Boston and Chicago areas, have risen about 185 percent over the past 12 months ended Thursday.

Berkshire Hathaway Inc., the company that agreed to buy Burlington Northern Santa Fe Corp. in its biggest takeover, accepted a lower-than-usual breakup fee in a sign Warren Buffett expects no one will top his bid.

Berkshire will receive $264 million if Burlington, the biggest U.S. railroad, cancels the agreement, according to a filing yesterday. That’s less than 1 percent of the deal’s value including net debt and compares with the 2 percent to 3 percent that is typical of these deals, said Elizabeth Nowicki, a professor at Tulane University Law School.

“Berkshire recognizes there’s a very, very small chance Burlington is going to have the desire or the opportunity to back out,” Nowicki, who is a former mergers and acquisitions lawyer at New York-based Sullivan & Cromwell LLP, said in an interview. “In this difficult economy, I doubt the Burlington board is going to have other bidders wanting to acquire them.”

Buffett, who built Berkshire over more than four decades, is taking on debt and spending the company’s cash as the economic crisis curbs expansion at some U.S. firms. Berkshire agreed to pay $26 billion for the 77.4 percent of Fort Worth, Texas-based Burlington it didn’t already own and assume $10 billion in net debt.

Officials at the Washington-based Hogan & Hartson law firm and London-based Lovells said Thursday that they are discussing a possible merger, a move that would make the combined entity one of the largest law firms in the world, with 2,500 lawyers and 40 offices.

Both firms specialize in similar practice areas -- mergers and acquisitions, initial public offerings, litigation and other corporate transactions. A merger, officials said, would allow them to increase market share and become a global powerhouse in three of the most important financial markets in the world: the United States, Europe and Asia.

"In order to play at the top tier of the legal profession, you need breadth and depth in all three of these geographic markets, and you need to be at the top of the markets," said Peter Zeughauser, chairman of the Zeughauser Group, which is advising Lovells on the proposed merger. The new firm would "draw more clients and more top talent to service that work," he said.

The management teams at Hogan & Hartson and Lovells are expected to make a unanimous recommendation to the partners of the firms, who have the final say on the proposal, officials said. Documents detailing the merger will be sent to partners next week, officials said. If they approve the proposal in December, as is expected, the merger would go into effect in May.

American Processing Company, LLC, said Monday that it had signed a definitive agreement to purchase National Default Exchange, otherwise known in the default industry as NDEx — and it’s a transaction that signals a strong shift in strategy among some of the more powerful players in the default management space.

The deal involves back-office spin-offs of two well-known creditor’s right law firms, Texas-based Barrett Daffin Frappier Turner & Engel, L.L.P. and Michigan-based Trott & Trott, P.C. Both are among the largest firms in the nation that manage foreclosures, evictions, and related legal work for their clients.

American Processing Company is tied to Trott & Trott, while NDEx is tied to Barrett Daffin et al — or, more precisely, David Trott is president of APC and managing attorney at the law firm that bears his name, while Michael Barrett is president at NDEx and managing partner at the law firm that bears his name.

Microsoft Corp has come to the "end of the story" with Yahoo Inc and will now focus on its own, clear strategy of evolving as a leading provider of Internet services, the president of Microsoft International said.

Jean-Philippe Courtois told Reuters in an interview in London on Tuesday Microsoft had made a compelling offer but had decided to walk away after much discussion because the "stars just didn't align".

"We decided to move on and basically withdraw our offer and continue executing on our strategy to become and evolve as a leading provider of Internet services in the online advertising world, media, social networking etc," he said.

"So that is what the company is going to focus on."

Asked if that was the end of the story with Yahoo, he replied: "Absolutely, that's the end of the story. We are moving on because our strategy is very clear."

Yahoo chief Jerry Yang told Reuters in an interview on Monday he had "mixed feelings" about events at the weekend, when talks broke down, but said Yahoo would still be open and more than willing to listen if Microsoft had anything new to say.

Shares in Yahoo fell 15 percent on Monday and some analysts said the drop was cushioned by investors who were betting Microsoft would eventually come back to the table.