(Adds Qualcomm, Enel )
May 18 (Reuters) - The following bids, mergers, acquisitions and disposals were reported by 2000 GMT on Friday:
** Lloyds Banking Group LLOY.L has sold its Irish residential mortgage portfolio to Barclays BARC.L for around 4 billion pounds ($5.4 billion) in cash, as part of a plan to focus on its core British market. Qualcomm Inc's QCOM.O $44 billion deal to buy Dutch chipmaker NXP Semiconductors NV NXPI.O is looking "more optimistic now", the Wall Street Journal quoted a Beijing official as saying. After holding an interest in Hilton Worldwide Holdings Inc HLT.N for nearly 11 years, private equity firm Blackstone (NYSE:BX) Group LP BX.N has decided to exit the hotel chain operator by selling its about 5.8 percent stake. PayPal Holdings Inc PYPL.O has agreed to buy Swedish financial technology startup iZettle for $2.2 billion in the U.S. online payments provider's biggest ever acquisition. New Zealand's Goodman Property Trust (GMT) GMT.NZ will sell its majority-held VXV office portfolio to a number of Blackstone BX.N funds for NZ$635 million ($436.44 million), in the U.S. private equity giant's latest move further into Oceania. South Korea's SK Holding Co Ltd 034730.KS said it had decided to invest $250 million in Brazos Midstream, a U.S. shale gas gathering and processing company, to expand its energy businesses. Italy's biggest utility Enel ENEI.MI would look at any assets of smaller rival EDP EDP.LS that came to market in case of a break up of the Portuguese energy group, a source familiar with the matter said on Friday. The co-founder of New York-based marketing firm Didit is interested in buying gossip website Gawker Media LLC out of bankruptcy after a U.S. judge approved a settlement with the investor Peter Thiel, whose funding of a lawsuit against Gawker forced it to close in 2016. India's Tata Steel Ltd TISC.NS said it had completed the acquisition of a 72.7 percent stake in Bhushan Steel Ltd BSSL.NS , which was in bankruptcy court over unpaid loans. Sibanye-Stillwater SGLJ.J is confident its planned purchase of Lonmin LMI.L , LONJ.J will go ahead, but the struggling platinum producer must slow its cash burn, the South African firm's chief executive said. IAG ICAG.L is not expecting to announce a deal to buy Norwegian Air Shuttle NWC.OL soon and would not make a hostile bid, its chief executive said, adding his airline group had growth opportunities on its own. The RAG Foundation, a German public sector trust, bought a 4.5 percent stake in property lender Deutsche Pfandbriefbank PBBG.DE from Hypo Real Estate (HRE) in a placement earlier this week, according to a filing by Pfandbriefbank (PBB). South Africa's Murray & Roberts MURJ.J and construction firm Aveng Limited AEGJ.J said they have agreed in principle on a potential merger. Tata Steel's TISC.NS Dutch works council has called into question a timeframe for completing a joint venture between the Indian group and Thyssenkrupp TKAG.DE by end-June, saying it may need more time to assess the deal, its president said. Buyout fund CVC Capital has agreed to buy a majority stake in Mehilainen, one of Finland's largest healthcare companies, from private equity companies KKR KKR.N and Triton. ESR-REIT ESRR.SI will buy rival Viva Industrial Trust VIVA.SI in a proposed deal valued at S$936.7 million, marking the first consolidation among Singapore's crowded mid-cap real estate investment trusts.
** Mexican bottler Arca Continental said that it had suspended negotiations to buy shares in Corporacion Lindley because of a change in the tax burden on Lindley's products in Peru. Mudrick Capital Management LP filed a lawsuit against satellite communications company Globalstar Inc GSAT.A over its proposed merger with FiberLight LLC, stating that the terms of the deal valued at $1.65 billion are "wildly unfair."