What has Blackstone (NYSE: BX) been doing with all those theme parks it's been buying? Well, the answer is becoming a bit clearer now. The private equity firm is getting ready to take theme park operator Merlin Entertainments public early next year.

Several investment banks have already been called to advise on the transaction, including Citigroup (NYSE: C), Goldman Sachs (NYSE: GS), Deutsche Bank (NYSE: DB), UBS (NYSE: UBS), and Nomura (NYSE: NMR). If all goes as planned, the deal could be good for $3.33 billion.

It now appears almost certain that the federal government will takeover Fannie Mae (NYSE: FNM) and Freddie Mac (NYSE: FRE). The amount of money the Treasury will have to put into the companies to improve their balance sheets will probably wipe out common shareholders.

The news may foreshadow what will happen to Lehman Brothers (NYSE: LEH) if its gets into more trouble The value of its commercial loan portfolio and mortgage-back securities is bound to fall as the real estate market gets worse.

Several outside investors, including Japanese broker Nomura and the Korea Development Bank, may pump money into Lehman. It is not good news that no one has pulled the trigger on putting up cash. All of the interested parties are probably waiting for Lehman's next quarterly earnings report. If the numbers are bad the value of Lehman's stock, which has gone from a 52-week high almost $68 to $16, could fall further.

The lesson from Freddie and Fannie (and, to some extent, Bear Stearns) is that the Fed and Treasury do not care about common shareholders. They get to go down with the ship.

Douglas A. McIntyre is an editor at 247wallst.com.

Motorola, Inc. (NYSE: MOT), the company that defined two-way radio communications decades ago and helped invent the cellular telephone business in the 1980s, may be looking to shed itself of its handset division. After one of the best wireless handset success stories ever with the 50 million-strong RAZR, the company has been mired in sagging sales, market share losses and monetary losses all at the same time. Even the company's former CEO didn't escape, as Ed Zander left his CEO spot less than a month ago under severe fire from the investment community.

Motorola's shares have plunged based on its horrible financial results, today standing at just over $11.30 per share, giving the company a market cap of just over $25 billion. The company's current malaise is largely due to the complete ineptness of its handset division, which for some reason fell off the wagon completely after the RAZR became the wireless handset darling of this decade. Motorola has seen suggestions of a breakup to unlock shareholder value, something longtime investor activist Carl Icahn has advocated.

Will Motorola dump its handset division and concentrate on becoming an enterprise equipment company instead of a consumer one? Analyst Richard Windsor speculated this week that the world's second-largest handset maker may indeed sell its wireless handset division. If a sale is made, the buyer will have a plethora of problems to fix; problems that, for some reason, are being evaded at Motorola's largest competitors in the space. Nokia Corp. (NYSE: NOK),for example, seems to be doing quite well.

MAJOR PAPERS:

• In an interview with the Financial Times (subscription required), Carl Icahn said of Motorola (NYSE: MOT): "There is value there, and if that value doesn't manifest itself, I as an activist, would think very seriously about coming back."

OTHER PAPERS:

• Universal Music is in talks with Sony Corporation's (NYSE: SNE) Sony BMG and Warner Music Group (NYSE: WMG) over launching a music subscription service to be called Total Music, which would be free on certain devices, reported the Telegraph.
• While Emerging Memory Technologies CEO Sreedhar Natarajan would not confirm the deal, stating "I'm under a non-disclosure agreement," it is clear that EMT has been acquired by Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (NYSE: TSM), the Ottawa Citizen reported.
• Lehman Brothers analyst Douglas Anmuth believes Google (NASDAQ: GOOG) will launch a mobile phone similar to that of Apple's (NASDAQ: AAPL) iPhone in February, reported the Independent.
• The Associated Press reported that Nomura Holdings (NYSE: NMR) announced that it will close its mortgage-backed securities business in the U.S., and expects a group pretax loss of between $240M and $510M for the quarter ended in September.

WEBSITES:

• According to Unstrung.com's sources in the finance community, Cisco Systems (NASDAQ: CSCO) is expected to enter the WiMax arena before the end of the month, and Navini Networks is Cisco's preferred target.

Over the past few years, the equities markets in Japan have staged a nice comeback. As a result, there has been a surge in mergers & acquisitions activity.

Good news for Japanese investment banks? Not necessarily. In fact, the beneficiaries are mostly US investment banks. This is according to an article at Bloomberg.com.

In 2006, the top investment bank in Japan was actually Goldman Sachs. Then again, this firm has taken some big risks in this market. For example, in 2003, the firm purchased 91 golf courses in Japan, when the market was at the bottom.

Interestingly enough, Nomura Holdings was ranked #6 overall. Not long ago, this firm had about half the market share. Now it has a lowly 15%.

Why the fall-off? It might be that the Japanese investment banks lack global platforms. Yet Japanese corporate clients realize that in order to grow they need to look for opportunities in other countries.

True, Nomura is not standing still. As I've written at Bloggingstocks.com, the firm has made some interesting deals lately to boost its business.

Maybe the next step is to buy an investment bank.

Tom Taulli is the author of various books, including the Complete M&A Handbook and operates DealProfiles.com.

The biggest securities firm in Japan, Nomura Holdings, NYSE:NMR) is getting bigger. The company recently snagged Instinet, which is an electronic exchange (yes, a pretty hot space).

Now, the company is going to shell out $888 million for a 15% stake in Fortress Investment Group, which is a mega player in hedge funds and private equity. Basically, it looks like Nomura is trying to build a powerhouse like Goldman Sachs.

In fact, Fortress is in the process of going public. Thus, the Nomura's investment provides a valuation benchmark on the upcoming deal (about $5.9 billion).

The deal is also strategic, allowing Fortress to move into the lucrative Asian markets. In other words, it could be a nice boost for the IPO.

Tom Taulli is the author of various books, including the Complete M&A Handbook and operates DealProfiles.com.

The biggest securities firm in Japan, Nomura Holdings, agreed to buy Instinet, which is an electronic trading firm.

It was last December that Silver Lake Partners, a private equity firm, purchased Instinet for about $208 million.

So, what did Nomura pay for Instinet? It hasn't been disclosed, but the rumor is that it was in excess of $1 billion.

If so, this would certainly qualify has a home-run deal.

But this does raise a big issue: Isn't a private equity firm supposed to fix-up and improve a company before it is sold off? Can this realistically be done in less than a year?

Well, I think this deal is a classic case of "good timing." With the onslaught of technology, stock exchanges are undergoing major changes. As a result, there has been an aggressive move to electronic approaches. It also helps that Instinet has a large list of hedge fund clients.

If a private equity firm can get a big return early, it's their duty to take it.

Tom Taulli is the author of various books, including the Complete M&A Handbook and operates InvestorOffering.com.