Following are some milestones in the year-old saga:2010:Oct 11 - Harbin says CEO Tianfu Yang and his affiliates offer $24 per share to take the company private.Oct 29 - Harbin says board to consider CEO’s go-private proposal.Nov 23 - Yang ends an exclusive financing agreement with private equity firm Baring Private Equity Asia, raising concerns over his plans to take Harbin private.Enters into term loan facility agreement with China Development Bank.2011:April 15 - Yang says has lined up necessary funding for his $24/share offer.June 10 - Harbin says Yang and Abax Global Capital reaffirm their offer, which is worth $750 million, after a research firm raised doubts about the deal.June 16 - Harbin shares drop sharply as a short-seller report prompted investors to bail out rather than wait to see if a proposed bid would come to fruition.June 17 - Harbin says the short-seller report was “factually incorrect.”June 20 - Harbin agrees to Yang’s offer.July 13 - Harbin files preliminary merger proxy statement with U.S. regulators, increasing investor confidence in its CEO-led buyout.Aug 3 - Harbin shares sharply fall again. This time, short-seller Citron Research says a management buyout will never come to fruition. The stock later recovers.Aug 5 - Harbin denies any Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) investigation against it.Sept 6 - Citron Research, quoting a financial blog, says Harbin is involved in land purchase fraud. The Alfredlittle.com blog accuses Harbin of “stealing money from shareholders”. Harbin denies the allegations.Harbin says China Development Bank Corp remains committed to funding a planned CEO-led buyout.Sept 29 - Harbin starts mailing proxies for a shareholder meeting to vote on the go-private deal.Oct 17 - Harbin says proxy adviser Institutional Shareholder Services (ISS) has recommended shareholders vote for the Yang go-private offer.Oct 18 - Harbin says two more proxy advisers — Glass Lewis & Co and Egan-Jones Proxy Services — ask shareholders to vote for the deal.

Consumers’ outlook also deteriorated with the gauge of consumer expectations falling to its lowest level since May 1980 at 47.0 from 49.4. The index had fallen to this level in early September before being revised up at the end of the month.The component has shed more than 20 points since the beginning of the year.”Overall, the data indicate that a recessionary downturn is likely to occur,” survey director Richard Curtin said in a statement.”Even if the economy manages to avoid the formal recession designation by (The National Bureau of Economic Research), real consumer expenditures will not be strong enough to enable the more robust job growth that is needed to offset the negative grip of economic stagnation on consumer behavior.”Thirty-nine percent of consumers cited income declines as the reason why their finances have recently worsened, while 65 percent of all households expected no income increase during the year ahead. Both levels were the highest ever recorded by the survey.The survey’s barometer of current economic conditions dipped to 73.8 from 74.9.Improvement in inflation expectations was a silver lining, with the one-year inflation expectation easing to 3.2 percent from 3.3 percent. The survey’s five-to-10-year inflation outlook fell to 2.7 percent from 2.9 percent.

Permira had been in exclusive talks with Alcatel-Lucent for several months, although a person close to the company, cited by the FT, said this was relaxed to allow interest from other groups.Genesys, which was acquired by Alcatel in 2000, sells software that is used in call centres and video conferencing.Both Alcatel-Lucent and Permira were unavailable for immediate comment.