| Spring holiday season is usually slow on corporate activity but the UK is having an unusually busy week when it comes to dealmaking. It started when London-listed Glencore saw a $23 billion approach to Canadian miner Teck Resources spurned. And if mining mergers are your cup of tea, here's Bloomberg's follow up scoop on what comes next for Teck. We also have a write-up on how the approach is the first tangible sign that Glencore — the biggest shipper of coal and for years one of its most vocal defenders — is thinking about exiting the space. Even with Glencore's efforts thwarted, the last 48 hours alone have made this the third-busiest week of the year in the UK, our data show. Wealth manager Rathbones Group agreed to buy Investec's UK wealth management business, creating an operation worth about £100 billion in funds, the companies said today. Rising costs for regulation, technology and operations are pushing firms in the industry to combine forces, my colleagues Loukia Gyftopoulou and Adelaide Changole write. More broadly, chief executives across a range of sectors seem increasingly open to pursuing deals as they chase growth in an environment where higher supply chain costs and rising inflation are hurting profitability. Still, pulling off cross-border deals under increased regulatory scrutiny is no easy task. Take the sale of storied football club Manchester United. My colleagues Alex Wickham and David Hellier had the scoop on UK government officials privately flagging concerns about bidder Sheikh Jassim bin Hamad Al Thani, who heads a consortium that some see as the lead bidder for the club.  Sheikh Jassim Bin Hamad J.J. Al Thani Source: Qatar Islamic Bank And even as the green shoots of mergers appear, London's market for initial public offerings is still barren ground. Company listings in the city have slumped to a 14-year low this year, outpacing the declines in New York and Paris. One area where London continues to see increased activity seems to be petty crime. We have taken to lugging our bicycles into the house each day because leaving them outside is very risky. Car theft is on the rise too, if the local WhatsApp groups are any indication. Oh, and if you are planning to get insurance for that new Range Rover, you should expect to pay more for auto insurance in the coming months — as your insurer is likely losing money, Chris Bryant writes for Bloomberg Opinion. "Inflation has dramatically pushed up the cost of accident and theft claims, sticking insurers on both sides of the Atlantic with big underwriting losses," Bryant says. Maybe biking is the way to go. As recently as 2000, France, Italy and Spain were ranked as having the best health care systems in the world. But more than two decades and a global pandemic later, that picture has changed. The coronavirus pandemic exposed weaknesses in the European Union's much-envied health care systems — and time is running out to fix them. | 
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