Merrill Lynch today ruled out selling its stakes in fund manager BlackRock and data giant Bloomberg to raise cash, despite spiralling sub-prime writedowns driving it to its first full-year loss in 19 years.
Fourth quarter writedowns amounting to $11.5bn plunged Merrill's global markets and investment banking unit to a $16.3bn (â¬11bn) pre-tax loss last year, beating the $10.5bn figure Citigroup revealed earlier this week. Merrill swung to a $7.8bn group net loss last year from a $7.5bn profit in 2006.
