Blue Prism, a British software company, announced on SEP 28 that it has reached an agreement with private equity firm Vista Equity Partners to be acquired for £1.1 billion ($1.5 billion) in cash. Vista will pay each shareholder £11.25 per share, a 35 percent premium over the business's recent closing price of £8.32, according to Blue Prism, a company that specialises in software robots that automate monotonous jobs. It's the latest in a long line of private equity investments in publicly traded software firms. Proofpoint agreed to a $12.3 billion sale to Thoma Bravo earlier this year, while Cloudera is being purchased by KKR and Clayton, Dubilier & Rice.

The Southeast Asian country exports the world's second-largest volume of coffee. The country is seeing its worst Covid outbreak since the outbreak began, and a lockdown in the country's exporting capital, Ho Chi Minh City, has delayed the export of coffee and other items. Vietnamese coffee exports fell 8.7% in August from July to 111,697 tonnes, according to customs statistics reported by Reuters. According to the news agency, Vietnam sold 1.1 million tonnes of coffee from January to August, a 6.4 percent decline from the previous year, despite a 2 percent gain in coffee export earnings to nearly $2 billion.

With a multibillion-euro defence contract, France and Greece have taken a first courageous step toward European strategic autonomy, paving the path for a Europe capable of defending its interests in the wider region, the Middle East, and the eastern Mediterranean.