This is interesting. From Edward Adams of the ABA Journal:

Legal information giant Thomson Reuters – owner of the storied brand West Publishing – is about to get into the business of providing legal services, according to the company.

Thomson announced Thursday evening that it is acquiring Indian legal process outsourcing company Pangea3 in a deal the Business Standard of India valued at between $35 million and $40 million.

Pangea3 is one of the largest legal outsourcing firms in India, with more than 650 employees and annual revenue in excess of $25 million, according to the Business Standard. A number of venture capitalists have invested in the company, including Silicon Valley’s Sequoia Capital which invested $7 million in 2007…

Interesting article on the merger of Comast/NBC, with mentions of Sirius/XM and AT&T/BellSouth

From Matthew Lasar at ArsTechnica:

“Good morning, this hearing will come to order, and we welcome all. I notice that there are a few people in the room,” declared Senator Jay Rockefeller (D-WV). “We’re here to discuss consumers—they’re the good guys, right? The people we try to protect.”

The Senator’s comment about a “few people in the room” was sarcastic, of course. The hall was filled because the subject was, once again, the proposed merger of Comcast and NBC Universal—this one held on Thursday under the auspices of the Senate Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee.

The union—in which Comcast would control 51 percent of the new media entity and present owner General Electric with the rest—has already received at least four contentious Capitol Hill sessions, the most famous being Senator Al Franken’s (D-MN) dressing down of Comcast and NBC in February. This latest was relatively low key. But for Ars readers who want to follow the story, it was useful because both the Chair of the Federal Communications and a representative from the Department of Justice outlined how their respective agencies will each evaluate the deal…

From the 451 Group:

For what was once a fairly staid Old Economy business, Iron Mountain has done a better job than most companies in acclimating itself to the digital age. The records management vendor has accomplished that with eight acquisitions over the past half-decade, picking up technology for online backup and e-discovery, among other offerings. The $158m purchase of e-discovery provider Stratify stands, in many ways, as Iron Mountain’s marquee acquisition for its digital business. It has maintained the Stratify name and, last November, turned its whole digital subsidiary over to Ramana Venkata, the founder and former CEO of Stratify…

…However, the market has been buzzing recently with another possible pairing for Iron Mountain – Mimosa Systems. Although Mimosa has talked in the past about going public this year, we have always thought that an acquisition of the company was more likely…

From Bloomberg:

Exxon Mobil Corp.’s (XOM) planned buyout of independent natural gas producer XTO Energy Inc. (XTO) provided a ringing endorsement for the commodity on Monday–and could signal a modest uptick in merger activity.

The deal is valued at $41 billion, including the assumption by Exxon of about $10 billion of XTO’s debt, and is the largest energy transaction since Chevron Corp. (CVX) acquired Texaco in 2001. It underscores the increasing attention major oil companies have been paying to unconventional resources–and is likely to stoke some of the mergers and acquisitions that until recently have been frozen by uncertainty about the future of natural gas prices.

“We should see a slow and steady increase in M&A activity,” said Stephen Davis, an associate portfolio manager for Alpine Mutual Funds…