Brazil's leftist President Dilma Rousseff placed first in Sunday's election but did not get enough votes to avoid a runoff and will face pro-business rival Aecio Neves, who made a dramatic late surge to finish a strong second.
Brazil's TIM Participações SA (TIMP3.SA) has hired Banco Bradesco SA's (BBDC4.SA) investment banking unit to analyze a potential bid for rival Grupo Oi SA (OIBR3.SA), a source with knowledge of the situation told Reuters on Friday.
The United States and Brazil are close to settling a decade-old trade dispute over cotton subsidies, three Brazilian sources close to the talks told Reuters, in what would be the first concrete step to repair ties hurt by an espionage scandal.
Brazil's increasingly powerful evangelical Christians are tantalizingly close to electing one of their own as president next month in what would be a historic shift for the world's largest Catholic nation.
