Merrill Lynch & Co is moving closer to selling stakes in financial firm BlackRock and information provider Bloomberg in an effort to raise cash to make up for $6 billion in coming write-downs, Reuters reports.
Merrill Lynch Holds 49% in BlackRock, which is worth about $12 billion, and 20% in Bloomberg, which is worth an estimated $5 billion. But due to an agreement with BlackRock, cannot sell that stake until 2009.
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