Merrill Lynch Co Inc

Merrill Lynch & Co. Inc. is in advanced talks to acquire a large stake in money manager BlackRock Inc. for $8 billion, the Wall Street Journal's online edition reported Sunday. Citing people familiar with the matter, the Journal said such a deal would create a $1-trillion fund-management colossus and transform Merrill Lynch, the largest U.S. retail brokerage. Merrill Lynch is stepping into a void created by the recent failure of talks between rival Morgan Stanley and BlackRock, the Journal said.

In a rare move, a federal judge threw out a deal in which Bank of America Corp. would have paid $33 million to settle charges that it misled shareholders about $3.6 billion in bonuses being paid to Merrill Lynch & Co. executives, contending that the punishment was too light. U.S. District Judge Jed Rakoff in New York also lashed out at federal regulators, saying they didn't dig deeply enough to determine whether Bank of America executives intentionally set out to deceive shareholders about plans to pay bonuses to employees of Merrill Lynch last year, when the bank was acquiring the Wall Street firm.

Merrill Lynch & Co. Inc. put investment banker Schuyler Tilney on leave Friday after he said he would not testify before a U.S. Senate subcommittee investigating the fall of energy trader Enron Corp. Tilney, 46, decided not to testify Tuesday after he learned the Department of Justice was probing a deal that the Senate is reviewing. Tilney, who is head of Merrill's energy and power group, arranged a $7-million equity investment for a company Enron set up to operate energy-generation barges.

Bank of America Corp. Chief Executive Kenneth Lewis told members of Congress on Thursday that he was not coerced by the government into going ahead with the acquisition of Merrill Lynch & Co. late last year after he learned of huge new losses at the brokerage giant. But some members of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee were openly skeptical. "We don't buy it," said Rep. Elijah E. Cummings (D-Md.). Rep. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.) was equally incredulous.

Merrill Lynch & Co Inc. has offered BlackRock Inc. Chief Executive Laurence Fink the post of CEO of the brokerage, CNBC reported Monday. Merrill has given Fink two weeks to decide whether to accept the offer, CNBC said. A Merrill Lynch spokeswoman declined to comment. Merrill last week ousted Stan O'Neal as CEO amid mounting losses on mortgage-related securities. The company's loan write-downs resulted in a $2.2-billion loss in the third quarter, the biggest in the brokerage's 93-year history.

Kirill Dibrova, floor administrator of the fledgling Russian Stock Exchange, was warned for years about "the sharks of American capitalism." Now he and his colleagues want to swim like the sharks. For Dibrova and 19 other visiting financial professionals from the former Soviet Union and East Bloc, Wall Street has replaced the Kremlin as the font of power and influence. They took a crash course on market economics American-style--and loved it.

Orange County's fiscal problems weren't severe enough to warrant a bankruptcy filing in late 1994, and the county could have earned as much as $1.8 billion by sticking to its hotly disputed investment plan, according to a study released Wednesday by a Nobel Prize-winning economist and paid for by Merrill Lynch & Co. Inc.

Terrence Toppin can barely speak and he is deaf. For most of his professional life, he's felt lost in a world designed for those who can hear. * But two years ago, everything changed when he was hired by Merrill Lynch & Co. Inc. to work as an analyst in its financial services program for the deaf and hearing-impaired. "It's really the best thing that could have happened to me and for others in the deaf community," said Toppin, who is based in Merrill's Palm Beach, Fla.

Add a new name to the list of Los Angeles firms offering private banking services to the well-heeled. Merrill Lynch Capital Markets, Asia-Pacific Region, formally opens its "international private clients" office today in Beverly Hills. The office is Merrill Lynch's first U.S.-based operation catering specifically to Asian clients with a net worth of $10 million or more who are looking to diversify their assets.

Attorneys said Friday that they had reached a settlement of the wrongful-death lawsuit filed against the widow of Arthur Kane, who killed a Merrill Lynch manager and himself after the 1987 stock market crash. Kane, hurt financially by "Black Monday," walked into the Merrill Lynch & Co. office in Miami on Oct. 26, 1987, one week after the crash, killing office manager Jose Argilagos and paralyzing his broker, Lloyd Kolokoff. Attorneys R. W.

Merrill Lynch & Co. said it is examining some irregularities in London trading accounts and has informed regulators, but believes the risk of possible losses is "under control." The company disclosed it was investigating trading after the New York Times reported that a London-based foreign exchange trader lost more than $120 million while others may have lost hundreds of millions more on derivatives trading.

New York's attorney general issued subpoenas Tuesday to former Merrill Lynch & Co. Chief Executive John Thain and Bank of America Corp.'s chief administrative officer, J. Steele Alphin, amid an investigation into bonuses that Merrill paid executives just before it was sold to Bank of America. Thain, 53, was serving as head of the newly combined company's wealth management division before he resigned last week.

Former Merrill Lynch & Co. Chief Executive John Thain on Monday defended the acquisition of the brokerage by Bank of America Corp., saying the bank knew of the company's losses and payment of bonuses before the purchase closed. Thain also said he planned to reimburse Bank of America for a $1.2-million renovation of his office a year ago, saying in an interview with CNBC that "it is clear to me in today's world that it was a mistake." "I apologize for spending that money . . . .

After nearly running out of money in its small-business loan funds last month, Valley Economic Development Center Inc. of Van Nuys says it is getting $16 million to enable it to continue to lend to Southern California firms caught in the stubborn credit crunch. Most of the money -- $15 million -- is coming from the city of Los Angeles. Last week, Merrill Lynch & Co. said it would supply the group with $1 million.

Dumping troubled assets for pennies on the dollar may not be the way to bolster a sliding stock price, after all. Shares of Merrill Lynch & Co. slumped Tuesday to their lowest closing price in nearly 10 years as investors continued to fret about how much the soft economy and a still-steep overhang of bad debt could weigh on the brokerage giant. The stock slid 92 cents, or 3.7%, to $23.82, falling below its previous multiyear closing low of $24.33 set July 28 -- just before Merrill announced plans to unload mortgage assets once valued at $30.6 billion for $6.7 billion, or 22 cents on the dollar.

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.

Merrill Lynch & Co. stunned the securities markets Wednesday by announcing that it will record a $250-million trading loss in mortgage securities this quarter, after what it called "significant unauthorized activity" by one of its top traders in the unusually turbulent market in those bonds. Although a large Merrill Lynch trading loss had been rumored for weeks among professionals in the mortgage markets, many traders said its magnitude was entirely unexpected.

The U.S. economy will slide the first three months of 1988 before recovering and posting a modest gain, Merrill Lynch & Co. predicted Thursday. Among other predictions from the financial services giant in its annual economic forecast: * The dollar will resume its fall against other currencies, eventually trading for 120 Japanese yen and 1.5 West German marks in late 1988. * Inflation will be "modest," with prices rising about 5%, as they did in 1987.