Business news for Mon, 24 Dec 2007 & with word unit. 19 news.

CHINA Oilfield Services Ltd, a unit of the nation's third-largest oil producer, won a contract to supply four drilling rigs to Libya for about US$100 million. China Oilfield will deliver two 7,000-meter and two 5,000-meter drilling rigs over three years starting in March, the Beijing-based company said on its Website today. The oil and gas services company, whose main customer is CNOOC Ltd, aims to expand both at home and abroad to benefit from increased exploration spending after oil prices surged. "This is the company's first overseas onshore drilling contract," Yuan Guangyu, vice chairman of China Oilfield, said. "We see Libya as the starting point to expand our broad range of oil field services to overseas markets such as the Middle East and north Africa." China Oilfield shares rose 6.7 percent to HK$17.92 at the Hong Kong stock exchange's close at 12:30pm.

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Stocks rallied on Monday, led by financial companies, after Merrill Lynch (MER.N) took steps to shore up its balance sheet with plans to raise up to $6.2 billion and sell a lending unit.

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.

Buoyed by a robust growth in Indian market, two-wheeler maker Honda Motorcycle Scooter India (HMSI) is planning to set up a second manufacturing unit as it expects sales to cross the 1.2 million units per annum mark by March 2011.

Wall Street stocks were set for a flat start ahead of an abbreviated Christmas Eve trading session with Merrill Lynch's sale of a lending unit the pick of corporate deal news

FT.com - Wall Street stocks were set for a flat start on Monday ahead of an abbreviated Christmas Eve trading session with Merrill Lynch's sale of a lending unit the pick of corporate deal news.

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Stock index futures rose on Monday, lifted by news Merrill Lynch plans to sell a lending unit and with investors eyeing retailers as the busy holiday shopping season draws to a close.

Reuters - Stock index futures rose on Monday, lifted by news Merrill Lynch plans to sell a lending unit and with investors eyeing retailers as the busy holiday shopping season draws to a close.

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.

Mesirow Financial Holdings Inc.'s turnaround division may need a dose of its own medicine. The business, which provides consulting services to troubled companies, cut almost a quarter of its staff in July after a drop in bankruptcy filings cut into profit. Despite bonuses offered to the 90 who ...

A recording industry group announced that it had won a key court ruling against Yahoo's China unit, in connection with online music piracy.

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.

Philips's medical-equipment unit has been a growth engine in recent years. But this year, it hit a speed bump: tighter U.S. budgets.

The Atlanta office of media buying and planning agency OMD is scaling down. The company is shutting down its newspaper unit in Atlanta after losing AT&T Inc. (formerly Cingular Wireless) as a client in October when the company consolidated its estimated $2.3 billion account at WPP Group's Mediaedge:cia. All employees that worked on AT&T's newspaper business will be out of a job Dec. 21, according to sources close to the situation. The OMD Atlanta office will remain open, housing about 30 employees who will service the remaining accounts, including the Georgia Lottery, Randstad, Icelandair and Bayer Advanced. Dale Travis will remain general manager of the Atlanta office. Bryan Jackson and Steve Rubinacci, formerly with OMD Atlanta, have moved over to Mediaedge:cia Atlanta to continue their work in print.

General Dynamics of Falls Church said last week that it has agreed to provide six portable combat operations centers to upper-level Marine Corps commands under a $38 million modification of an existing contract.

News Corp.'s $1.1 billion sale of eight TV stations to Oak Hill boosts the group's presence and is likely to benefit Tribune, which runs Oak Hill's Local TV unit.