Deals of the day-Mergers and acquisitions

(Adds Servier, Royal Mail, Double Eagle, Tellurian; Updates Catalent, Sabadell, ConocoPhillips, Anglo American, N-Able)

May 29 (Reuters) - The following bids, mergers, acquisitions and disposals were reported by 2000 GMT on Wednesday:

** Prolific oil and gas developer Double Eagle is exploring a sale of its latest Permian Basin-based producer in a deal that could be worth more than $6.5 billion, including debt, according to people familiar with the matter.

** The owner of Britain's Royal Mail has agreed to a 3.57 billion pound ($4.55 billion) takeover by Czech billionaire Daniel Kretinsky, in a take-private deal of one of the world's oldest postal firms.

** Royal Mail and its sister business GLS need sizable, almost immediate investments to defend market share and face shifting market trends, Czech billionaire Daniel Kretinsky told Reuters after the group's owner agreed to a 3.57 billion pound ($4.55 billion) takeover.

** Mining group BHP Group walked away from its $49 billion plan to take over rival Anglo American, which rejected a last-ditch request for more time, ending for now its six-week pursuit.

** Top U.S. independent oil and gas producer ConocoPhillips agreed to buy Marathon Oil for $22.5 billion, the latest in a series of mega-deals in the energy industry.

** The French government has told drugmaker Servier it is against any sale of its generics subsidiary Biogaran, which has a market share of almost a third in the country, Prime Minister Gabriel Attal said.

** N-Able, a U.S. provider of information technology software with a market value of about $2.5 billion, is exploring a sale after attracting acquisition interest, people familiar with the matter said.

** Spain's Sabadell is not planning to try and buy a competitor as part of a potential defence strategy against rival BBVA's hostile takeover attempt, Chief Executive Officer Cesar Gonzalez-Bueno told Reuters.

** Catalent said its stockholders have voted to approve Novo Nordisk parent's $16.5 billion bid to take over the contract manufacturer.

** Aethon Energy said it would buy Tellurian's upstream assets for $260 million and signed a deal that could allow the investment firm to purchase two million tons per annum of liquefied natural gas from Tellurian's Driftwood LNG plant.

** Merck agreed to buy privately held biotech EyeBio for as much as $3 billion, as it looks to diversify its portfolio of experimental drugs with treatments for eye diseases.

** Dubai-based engineering and consulting firm Sidara raised its offer for John Wood Group for the third time, saying that was the "final offer" for the British oilfield services and engineering firm.

** HSBC has transferred ownership of its Russian unit to Expobank for an undisclosed fee, the two lenders said , ending around two years of negotiations and uncertainty.

** A consortium of U.S. investment firm KKR and Singapore Telecommunications (SingTel) has emerged as the frontrunner to buy a minority stake worth $1 billion in one of Asia's biggest data centre providers, two sources said.

** India's Paytm is not in talks to sell a stake in itself, while neither billionaire Gautam Adani nor his namesake power-to-ports group are looking to buy shares in the embattled digital payments firm, the companies said.

** Cathie Wood's Ark Investment Management had purchased a stake in xAI, Elon Musk's artificial intelligence startup, with a post-money valuation of $24 billion, Bloomberg News reported on Tuesday.

** Private equity firm KKR would acquire Canadian energy firm Emera's indirect minority stake in the Labrador Island Link (LIL) clean energy transmission project for C$1.19 billion ($872.24 million), the companies said on Tuesday.

(Compiled by Rajarshi Roy, Aatreyee Dasgupta and Sourasis Bose in Bengaluru)