Business news for Mon, 31 Dec 2007 & with word capital. 13 news.

Tracinda said it will take a 35% stake in Delta Petroleum, making a $684 million investment in the energy company. The deal shows how many smaller energy companies could face difficulties financing their capital plans in coming years.

SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) -- Consolidated Mercantile Inc. has completed the sale of Polyair Inter Pack Inc. to Glencoe Skydome Holdings, an affiliate of Glencoe Capital, in a private deal for $6.2 million. The sale has been under consideration as a part of the company's continuing evaluation of potential strategies to maximize shareholder value, according to Consolidated Mercantile.

The subprime lender said it would fall short of regulatory capital requirements, sending its shares down 20 per cent

Reuters - Merrill Lynch & Co is in talks with Chinese and Middle Eastern sovereign wealth funds that could lead to the sale of another big stake in the U.S. bank, British newspaper The Observer reported, citing sources in London and New York.

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Merrill Lynch & Co is in talks with Chinese and Middle Eastern sovereign wealth funds that could lead to the sale of another big stake in the U.S. bank, British newspaper The Observer reported, citing sources in London and New York.

TEL AVIV (MarketWatch) -- Magic Software Enterprises Ltd., the Or Yehuda, Israel, provider of business-integration and application-development technology, sold its Advanced Answers on Demand subsidiary to Fortissimo Capital for $17 million. Fortissimo is the Rosh ha'Ayin, Israel, investment firm. Magic expects to post a more than $9 million gain on the sale of AAOD, which develops software for application in long-term health care, including retirement facilities as well as home-health and rehabilitation agencies. As part of the deal, Magic has licensed to AAOD the right to continue to sell its product portfolio for three years.

BEIJING (Reuters) - China on Monday announced a $20 billion capital injection into China Development Bank, one of the country's three policy lenders, as part of a long-planned transformation of the state-owned company into a commercial bank.

Merrill Lynch and Co. is in talks with Chinese and Middle Eastern sovereign-wealth funds to raise capital through selling another andquot;bigandquot; stake in the company, the Observer reported, citing London and New York sources it didn't identify.

The market, long ignored, could be on the way up, experts say, and not just in the capital. Property buyers have for several years been pouring money into previously little-known and little-visited European states, such as Montenegro and Lithuania. Yet there is one, much more prominent country that they rarely consider -- Germany.

LONDON (MarketWatch) -- London Scottish Bank said it's going to take 22 million pounds ($44 million) before tax in additional impairment charges for the year to Oct. 31, due to customer account balances in arrears. That will lead to 13 million pound shortfall in regulatory capital as of Jan. 1, which may lead it to restrict new lending volumes and not pay a final dividend.

China Development Bank has received a US$20bn capital injection from Central Huijin Investment Co.

Six days before Christmas, the Commercial Real Estate Women of Washington, D.C., gathered for its last monthly luncheon of the year in the ballroom of the Capital Hilton. Hundreds of architects, commercial real estate brokers, developers and bankers ended the year with a panel on the defining eve...

Merrill Lynch is in more trouble than it cares to admit and the recent investment by Singapore's Temasek does not appear to be enought to stave off questions about the extent of the banks exposure to bad loans in the mortgage market.