Business news for Mon, 24 Dec 2007 & with words firm+sale. 3 news.

Merrill Lynch & Co, the world's biggest brokerage, agreed to sell most of its commercial finance business to General Electric Co's finance arm for an undisclosed price to free up capital after subprime losses. The sale of Merrill Lynch Capital's corporate, equipment, energy and healthcare finance units is expected to be completed in the first-quarter, the companies said yesterday in a Business Wire statement. The deal will add more than US$10 billion in assets to GE Capital. The transaction is part of New York-based Merrill Lynch's "strategic focus on divesting non-core assets," and will release about US$1.3 billion of capital to be redeployed elsewhere, said Chief Executive Officer John Thain in the statement. Merrill, on October 24, announced US$8.4 billion of writedowns on mortgage-related investments and corporate loans. The firm, which ousted Stan O'Neal as CEO in October, may report an additional US$8.6-billion writedown for the fourth quarter, according to David

THE management of a second batch of power generating assets owned by State Grid Corp of China has been transferred to electricity producers, paving way for an eventual sale and making the firm a pure distributor as part of an industry reform. As of Sunday, the power-producing companies are responsible for safety operations and management of eight power plants in which State Grid owned a combined equity generating capacity of 6.47 gigawatts. The State Electricity Regulatory Commission said yesterday this marks the completion of the "main work" in the asset disposal. Other areas still to be done include deal signing, transaction and registration. State Grid, China's dominant power distributor, retained certain generating assets in 2002 during the breakup of the former State Power Corp into five national power producers and two grid operators. It had completed the sale of combined 10.8GW in the first phase of the sale in May to 31 companies, raising 18.7 billion yuan

Is News Corp. becoming a publishing centric media conglomerate? That appears to be a pattern emerging following Saturday's announcement that the company would divest of eight U.S. television stations to private equity firm Oak Hill Partners for about $1.1 billion. The divestiture, which is expected to close in the third quarter of 2008, follows News Corp.'s deal to acquire print and online publisher Dow Jones and Co. for $5 billion, and moves to liquidate other TV assets, including stakes in DirecTV and Gemstar TV Guide.