Stakes Raised in Bid for British Firm:...

Stakes Raised in Bid for British Firm: A U.S. partnership led by investment bank Wasserstein Perella & Co. raised its takeover bid in a hotly contested battle for Gateway Corp., Britain’s third-largest supermarket chain. The higher bid was endorsed by the company and appeared to give the U.S. bidders an edge in the contest against rival Isosceles PLC, a British investor group that has bid $3.60 a share. Wasserstein Perella and West German-controlled Great Atlantic & Pacific Tea Co. offered to pay $3.70 a share for Gateway. If successful, the deal, worth more than $3 billion, would be Europe’s biggest leveraged buyout.