Divestment

Merrill Lynch & Co., the nation's third-largest securities firm, dropped efforts to sell a stake in BlackRock Inc. and struck a deal instead to sell its 20% share of Bloomberg LP, according to people familiar with the decision. Merrill, poised to report a second-quarter loss today, stood to gain about $2 billion on its 49.8% stake in BlackRock, the nation's largest publicly traded fund manager, based on its current market value. BlackRock stock has fallen 17.

NEW YORK -- Tribune Co. is inviting at least three potential buyers who submitted bids for the Chicago Cubs and Wrigley Field near or above $1 billion to participate in a second round of proposals, according to a person involved in the process.

Will a fire sale at Merrill Lynch & Co. force similar moves by other investment banks? That was the big question Tuesday on Wall Street after Merrill's surprise decision to dump a huge chunk of troubled mortgage bonds for pennies on the dollar. Merrill Chief Executive John Thain said late Monday that the brokerage would sell so-called collateralized debt obligations once valued at $30.6 billion for 22 cents on the dollar.

Billionaire investor T. Boone Pickens has sold all his holdings in Yahoo Inc. in a pique over the way the Internet company's management handled sales talks with Microsoft Corp. Pickens told the San Francisco Chronicle that he sold all 10 million of his Yahoo shares, at a loss, because he grew frustrated with the company's repeated rebuffs of Microsoft's advances. "I think that Yahoo management was pathetic," Pickens told the Chronicle in a story published Tuesday.

For CBS Corp., it wasn't video that killed the radio star -- but a severe downturn in local advertising. The New York-based broadcasting company, controlled by billionaire Sumner Redstone, said Thursday that it planned to sell 50 radio stations in a dozen mid-size markets as ad revenue continued to slide in a weak economy. The company's once-mighty radio division continued to produce static and a drag on the company's earnings. Revenue rose barely 1% to $3.

Nine months after shareholders rejected the Dolan family's latest bid to take Cablevision Systems Corp. private, the cable operator said Tuesday that it was considering several options to boost its stock price, including spinning off some of its diverse holdings. Chief Executive James L.

The latest deal to sell Anaheim Memorial Medical Center collapsed Thursday when state officials nixed its $57-million purchase by Pacific Health Corp., which faces allegations that it defrauded Medicare and Medi-Cal. This was the third time in about a year that an agreement to sell the financially struggling hospital has unraveled. Atty. Gen.

Bargain hunters could snag some good deals by buying parts of troubled American International Group Inc.'s profitable subsidiaries in California and around the world, market analysts predicted Wednesday. Top-earning units that could be up for grabs in the state include 21st Century Insurance Co. of Woodland Hills, the state's seventh-largest automobile insurer, and International Lease Finance Corp. of Century City, which owns more than 950 commercial airliners. AIG also is the No.

Lehman Bros. Holdings Inc. on Monday agreed to sell its investment management business to a pair of private-equity firms, fetching $2.15 billion as the bankrupt investment bank continues its liquidation. Bain Capital Partners and Hellman & Friedman, two of the nation's biggest buyout firms, will take over Lehman's operations in fixed-income and alternative asset management.

The insurer American International Group Inc. said Friday it plans to sell a number of business units to pay off its massive government loan. The announcement was expected by Wall Street. But it now leaves investors wondering how much AIG will be able to raise from the sales. On the brink of failure last month, AIG was bailed out when the government offered it an $85-billion loan during the ongoing credit crisis that saw Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc.