Business news with words acquired+sale. 13 news.

Transmeridian Exploration agreed to be acquired by its chief executive's Trans Meridian International in a deal that values the energy company at $350 million.

LONDON (MarketWatch) -- Merrill Lynch on Monday completed a previously announced deal with Aegon , where it's selling its life insurance unit for $1.25 billion in cash. Aegon's Transamerica companies will continue to supply insurance and investment products, including offering the flagship Merrill Lynch Investor Choice Annuity product through the acquired Merrill Lynch subsidiaries. Merrill Lynch expects to record a gain on sale during the fourth quarter of 2007 and anticipates the transaction to be slightly accretive to earnings per share and to have a positive effect on return on equity in 2008 after redeployment of proceeds. Aegon expects the acquisition to add scale to its existing business and to have a marginally positive effect on earnings per share.

Eclypsis Corp. said U.K.-Dutch publisher Reed Elsevier N.V's Elsevier unit paid $25 million for Eclypsis' Clinical Practice Model Resource Center. Reed Elsevier reported the acquisition Thursday morning. The sale closed Dec. 19. Eclipsys, a Boca Raton, Fla., health-care information technology company, said Thursday morning that additional amounts are potentially payable in the future based on ongoing business between the companies. As part of the acquisition, Elsevier acquired several CPM Resource Center lines of business, including a comprehensive database of clinical content, consulting services, a healthcare consortium of rural, community and academic organizations, and practice-education partnerships with academic and affiliate clinical settings. Eclipsys said it will continue to include CPM Resource Center content in its Sunrise Knowledge-Based Charting product in exchange for license fees payable to Elsevier. Elsevier will also take over responsibility for maintenance and consulting services for the Centers content, providing clients with continuity in relationships with its professionals. Eclipsys said the sale was part of its strategy to expand and enhance content integration in Sunrise Knowledge-Based Charting and other Sunrise Clinical Manager integrated products and services. Clinical Practice Model Resource Center, a provider of evidence-based clinical content and services, is located in Grand Rapids, Mich.

Cessna Aircraft Co. has appointed Rod Holter to temporarily manage its recently acquired Columbia Aircraft Manufacturing plant in Bend, Ore. Holter is a vice president and the general manager of Cessna's plant in Independence. He will manage the Bend facility until a new general manager is hired for the facility, Cessna said. Cessna closed on the sale of Columbia Aircraft Dec. 4. Boeing Co. The company said Friday that AWAS, an airplane leasing company, has ordered 31 of its single-aisle 737-800 jets.

BOSTON (MarketWatch) -- H&R Block Inc. said Tuesday it has agreed to terminate a previous agreement under which Cerberus Capital Management would have acquired its Option One Mortgage Corp. unit. The tax-services provider said it will close all remaining origination activities of Option One and has stopped accepting new loan applications. H&R Block said the move will result in 620 staff cuts, the closure of three offices and a pretax restructuring charge of about $75 million. The company said it continues to pursue the sale of its loan-servicing activities.

Yahoo said it was considering "strategic options" for Kelkoo, including a possible sale of the online shopping comparison service that it acquired only three-and-a-half years ago

NEW YORK (MarketWatch) -- ConocoPhillips spokeswoman Janet D. Grothe said Tuesday the oil giant is marketing the Chuan Zhong oil asset in China, but it's not yet concluded the sale of the unit. Acquired in 2006, the Chuan Zhong Oil asset is a co-venture with China National Petroleum Corp. located in the interior of China near the city of Chengdu. At year end 2006, 19 development wells had been drilled there.

THE parent of NetBank, a pioneer in Internet banking, has filed for bankruptcy protection after the savings-and-loan became the first in three years to fail, Bloomberg News reported. The filing in US Bankruptcy Court by NetBank Inc in Jacksonville, Florida, listed assets of US$87.2 million and debt totaling US$42.4 million. The bankrupt holding company plans to sell real estate it owns in Columbia, South Carolina and its captive reinsurance subsidiary M.G. Reinsurance Inc. The Chapter 11 filing occurred after a sale of the savings-and-loan fell through and it was taken over by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp following a shutdown of the unit by US regulators. Federal law prohibits the savings-and-loan subsidiary from filing for bankruptcy protection from creditors like its parent. Federally chartered banks cannot be reorganized and must be liquidated by the FDIC. NetBank was founded in 1996 and went public in 1997. The bank had 286,000 customers and US$4.8 billion in assets in 2005 before online competition from national and regional banks eroded the business. The bank's failure this year was the result of margin compression from an inverted yield curve, fewer mortgage originations and demands to repurchase delinquent loans, according to a bankruptcy court filing. As part of the FDIC takeover, ING Bank announced it is assuming US$1.4 billion of the failed bank's deposits and 104,000 of its customers while EverBank Inc acquired US$700 million of NetBank's mortgage assets. The savings-and-loan subsidiary had US$2.5 billion in assets and US$2.3 billion in total deposits as of June 30, according to the FDIC.

Six months after putting itself up for sale, Husky Injection Molding Systems has struck a deal to be acquired by Onex Corp. for $960 million in cash.

CITIGROUP Inc and Merrill Lynch & Co yesterday bought five percent stakes in the Multi Commodity Exchange of India Ltd to tap the threefold growth in trade last year on the world's third-largest gold bourse. The exchange, known as MCX, sold smaller stakes to Passport Capital and GLG Partners LP, Joseph Massey, deputy managing director of the Mumbai-based company, said yesterday. The total sale is worth about 6.45 billion rupees (US$162 million), according to Bloomberg News. Overseas investors including Goldman Sachs Group Inc and Fidelity International Ltd have invested in Indian markets as the fastest pace of economic growth since independence in 1947 spurs demand for commodities in the world's second-largest sugar and rice producer. "The foreign companies will bring in their expertise from overseas and help enhance the Indian commodity market," Amol Tilak, an analyst at Kotak Commodity Services Ltd, said by phone from Mumbai. "It's a good time to be in." The value of trading on MCX, which also trades commodities such as mentha oil, jute and turmeric, surged to 20.25 trillion rupees in the year ending 2006 from 6.3 trillion rupees in 2005. Domestic traders and companies are the main participants on Indian commodity exchanges, compared with the 13 million individual investors - three times the population of Singapore - who invest in stocks. The South Asian nation opened up its stock markets to foreigners in 1993. MCX was inaugurated in November 2003, according to its Website. Jignesh Shah, managing director of MCX, said in January that overseas capital was essential for Indian commodity markets to become globally competitive. "Overseas participants are exuberant over the prospects for commodity exchanges in India," said Avinash Raheja, senior vice president at Mumbai-based Commtrendz Risk Management Services Pvt. "The market has done well in a very short period and for the next phase of growth we need the market to open up." Passport Capital bought a three percent stake in MCX and GLG Partners LP purchased three percent. Goldman acquired a seven percent holding in the National Commodities & Derivatives Exchange Ltd last year and Fidelity owns nine percent of MCX. Fidelity, a unit of Boston-based Fidelity Investments, the world's largest mutual-fund company, paid US$49 million for its stake in MCX and Goldman paid US$21 million for its holding.

General Cable agreed to acquire the wire and cable business of Freeport-McMoRan for $735 million. The sale comes six months after Freeport acquired Phelps Dodge.

General Cable agreed to acquire the wire and cable business of Freeport-McMoRan for $735 million. The sale comes six months after Freeport acquired Phelps Dodge.

SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) -- Take-Two Interactive Software Inc. said Friday morning that it has sold its Joytech video game accessory unit to Mad Catz Interactive . In its own statement, Mad Catz said it acquired the assets from Take-Two, as well as certain liabilities, for $3.7 million. Take-Two said the sale is not expected to be material to its financial results. Shares of Take-Two were trading down 2.4% Friday morning while AMEX-traded Mad Catz was trading up 2%.