European stocks close

European stocks advanced, extending five weeks of gains, amid takeovers by health-care companies and better-than-forecast industrial output in China.

In China, industrial production jumped 10.3 percent in October from a year earlier, the National Bureau of Statistics said Nov. 9. That was higher than September’s 10.2 percent and exceeded the 10 percent median projection of economists surveyed by Bloomberg. Inflation was a less-than-forecast 3.2 percent and producer prices fell 1.5 percent.

President Xi Jinping and top Communist Party leaders have gathered in Beijing for a meeting known as the third plenum to outline a blueprint to sustain growth and drive urbanization in the world’s second-biggest economy. The meeting of about 370 officials will conclude tomorrow.

National benchmark indexes climbed in all of the western European markets, except Iceland and Greece. The U.K.’s FTSE 100 Index and Germany’s DAX added 0.3 percent, while France’s CAC 40 advanced 0.7 percent.

Grifols, Europe’s largest blood-plasma products maker, advanced 4.5 percent to 32.36 euros. Novartis said will sell its blood-transfusion diagnostics unit to the Spanish company for $1.68 billion, completing the deal in the first half of 2014.

Shire rose 0.9 percent to 2,822 pence after the Dublin-based drugmaker agreed to buy ViroPharma for about $4.2 billion. Shire will pay $50 a share in cash, 27 percent more than the closing price of ViroPharma on Nov. 8.

Lonmin rallied 3.9 percent to 340.9 pence after posting full-year profit of 31 cents a share, compared with a loss of 202 cents a share in the previous year. That exceeded the 13 cent-median forecast of analysts surveyed by Bloomberg.

RSA Insurance Group Plc tumbled 11 percent to 108.1 pence for the largest drop in eight months. The U.K.’s biggest non-life insurer by market value said it suspended three top executives at its Irish unit amid a probe into finance and claims functions. The full-year operating result will be 70 million pounds lower than analysts estimate after it had to inject capital into the division.