Merrill Lynch and his $6.6 billion investment by Barbora Misakova

The world of finances is full of instability and its determined by many factors. One of them is also investments. These days the most disputed investment goes from Merrill Lynch & Co., Inc. which decided to get a fresh investment of $ 6.6 billion to three foreign investment groups. Merril Lynch is company providing markets services, bank investments, insurance and lot of related services worldwide. These days with its more than 700 offices in almost 40 countries is the world's leading financial company. The number of its client assets - $1.5 trillion says everything. After bad bets in the mortgage market Merrill Lynch lost billions of dollars but nowadays it invested more than $6 billion to long-term investors & the Korean Investment Corp., Kuwait Investment Authority and Mizuho Corporate Bank. As said John A. Thain, chairman and CEO of Merrill Lynch: "...balance sheet is strong, and these transactions make certain that Merrill Lynch is well capitalized." Merrill Lynch reckons Middle East as one of the fastest growing world regions and believe their cooperation with Kuwait Investment Authority will help to grow their presence in this area. Also cooperation with Mizuho Corporate Bank looks like a good move as they have extensive client base not only in Japan but also in China what could bring a very productive collaboration. Korean Investment Corp. manages part of foreign assets in the international financial markets and have also plumb less meaning for Merrill Lynch investments. According to statements of these three investment groups they are all satisfied with cooperation, even though they will be just passive investors and none of them will have a right to control the way of Merrill Lynch's governance. They will get a 9 % dividend and they will be able to convert their class of stock to common shares in a time of more than two years. Although this investments brought up new questions and controversies Anthony Sabino, a professor of law from St. John's University, claimed this move is not a panic one, on the contrary it is "very smart and strategic capital move."

related story: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080115/ap_on_bi_ge/merrill_lynch;_ylt=AtebBBLjGpbS8RsFEj89ooSs0NUE

by Barbora Misakova for PocketNews (http://pocketnews.tv)

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