Business news for Mon, 24 Dec 2007 & with words finance+unit. 6 news.

GE Capital, the financial unit of General Electric Co., said Monday it will acquire the bulk of the Merrill Lynch Capital commercial finance operations, allowing Merrill to redeploy about $1.3 billion into other parts of its business.

Reuters - Merrill Lynch & Co Inc , buffeted by huge write-downs of mortgage-related securities, said on Monday it would sell most of its middle-market lending business to General Electric Co's commercial finance arm in a deal to free up capital.

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Merrill Lynch & Co Inc , buffeted by huge write-downs of mortgage-related securities, said on Monday it would sell most of its middle-market lending business to General Electric Co's commercial finance arm in a deal to free up capital.

Merrill Lynch plans to sell its capital lending business to General Electric's commercial finance arm.

NEW YORK (MarketWatch) - GE Capital, a unit of General Electric Co. on Monday said it agreed to purchase most of Merrill Lynch Capital, Merrill Lynch's wholly-owned middle-market commercial finance business. Financial terms were not disclosed. The acquisition, expected to close in the first quarter of 2008, will add more than $10 billion in assets and $5 billion in commitments to GE Capital Commercial Finance's base of $260 billion. GE Capital said it will buy Merrill Lynch Capital's corporate finance, equipment finance, franchise, energy and healthcare finance units. Merrill Lynch Capital's commercial real estate finance unit is not part of the transaction.