Business news for Mon, 31 Dec 2007 & with word equity. 7 news.

As the financial markets brace for another wave of large losses at Wall Street banks, the outlook for these newly public firms and their as-yet-private brethren has darkened starkly.

China Investment Corporation (CIC), which has a 10 per cent stake in private equity group Blackstone and invested $5 billion into Morgan Stanley, has pumped $20 billion ($£10 billion) into the China Development Bank to transform it into a commercial lender.

Paris-based Publicis Groupe led a tumble in European media stocks this morning, following a negative report on the sector from a big Wall Street securities firm. Shares of Publicis were off 1.2% to $37.89, following the release of the report from Citigroup's equity research team.

The gilded realm of private equity has not been kind to ordinary investors this year.

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.

LONDON (MarketWatch) -- The Financial Services Authority is probing a jump in the share price of U.K. waste services group Biffa ahead of an announcement in November that it had received a 1.2 billion pound ($2.4 billion) takeover bid, according to a report in the Times (of London) newspaper. The report said the FSA has written to various parties involved in the talks to ask what they knew about any possible bid before buyout groups HgCapital and Montagu Private Equity revealed their offer. The inquiry is a part of a continuing focus at the regulator on insider trading ahead of major announcements, the newspaper added.

The Financial Services Authority is investigating a jump in the share price of Biffa, the waste services group, that occurred before an announcement that two private equity firms had made a £1.2 billion bid for the company.