News: AST Deals of the day-Mergers and acquisitions

(Adds Aedes, Illumina, Sopra Steria)

Sept 20 (Reuters) - The following bids, mergers, acquisitions and disposals were reported by 1950 GMT on Monday:

** Shares in Aedes SIIQ AED.MI jumped nearly 11% after majority shareholder Augusto SpA said it had appointed Rothschild as advisor for the sale of its entire 51.25% stake in the real estate portfolio manager.

** Illumina Inc ILMN.O expects an EU order to keep recently acquired Grail Inc GRAL.O as a separate company, the U.S. life sciences company said, hours after EU antitrust regulators warned of interim measures for closing the deal before their approval.

** French IT company Sopra Steria SOPR.PA said that it had not made any approach to rival Atos group ATOS.PA after media reported the company was targeting Atos for a potential takeover bid.

** Brooks Automation Inc BRKS.O would sell its semiconductor automation business to private equity firm Thomas H. Lee Partners LP (THL) for $3 billion in cash, scrapping earlier plans to separate the business from its life sciences unit.

** Brazilian conglomerate Novonor, controlling shareholder in petrochemical company Braskem SA BRKM5.SA , may sell its stake in a share offering, Brazilian newspaper Valor Economico reported.

** South African financial services holding company Rand Merchant Investment RMIJ.J said it would unbundle its stake in two major local insurers and carry out a rights issue to narrow a discount between its share price and its book value.

** Australia's AusNet Services (AST) said it had opened its books to an affiliate of Canadian infrastructure investor Brookfield Asset Management after it received a higher non-binding buyout proposal of A$9.57 billion ($6.95 billion).

** A consortium led by Australia's Transurban Group (TCL) will pay A$11.1 billion ($8.06 billion) for a near half stake of the country's longest auto tunnel network, giving it full ownership of the asset and dominance of Sydney's toll road network.

	**	 U.S. private equity firm Advent International will 
buy a controlling stake in Indian consumer electronics brand 

Eureka Forbes for 44 billion rupees ($597 million), its parent Shapoorji Pallonji Group said.