Dec. 24 -- Merrill Lynch & Co., reeling from the biggest loss in its 93-year history, will receive a cash infusion of as much as $6.2 billion from Singapore's Temasek Holdings Pte. and Davis Selected Advisors LP.
Temasek will invest up to $5 billion for a less-than 10 percent stake and New York-based money manager Davis Advisors will buy $1.2 billion of Merrill stock, the world's largest brokerage firm said in a statement today. Merrill fell 0.5 percent in New York Stock Exchange trading after the firm said Temasek will pay $48 a share, almost 14 percent less than the Dec. 21 closing price.
Merrill Chief Executive Officer John Thain, who took over Dec. 1, joins Citigroup Inc., Morgan Stanley and UBS AG in tapping a sovereign wealth fund to shore up capital. An $8.4 billion writedown of mortgage investments and loans led the firm to post a $2.2 billion third-quarter loss and oust CEO Stan O'Neal. Merrill may report another $8.6 billion writedown next month, said David Trone, an analyst at Fox-Pitt Kelton Cochrane Caronia Waller.
``Capital raising is a positive'' for Merrill, said Mark Batty, who helps manage about $77 billion including Merrill shares at PNC Wealth Management in Philadelphia. ``Given the challenge of the hits they've received to the equity base, that's a necessity.''
Merrill agreed earlier today to sell its commercial finance business to General Electric Co.'s finance arm for an undisclosed price as part of a plan to free up capital after subprime losses.
Selling at the Low
Temasek is paying $4.4 billion for new Merrill shares at $48 apiece and has an option to buy an additional $600 million of the company's stock by March 28, according to a term sheet posted on Merrill's Web site. Temasek Davis Advisors, a closely held firm founded in 1969, will make a ``long-term investment'' of $1.2 billion in Merrill shares, according to today's statement.
``The only negative for these capital infusions is that they're selling their stock at the lows,'' said Ben Wallace, who helps manage $850 million, including shares of Merrill, at Grimes & Co. in Westborough, Massachusetts. ``When you need the money most, you have to accept the low price.''
Temasek's stake won't exceed 10 percent, Merrill said. Neither the sovereign fund nor Davis Advisors will play a role in Merrill governance, the company said.
Stronger Management
Davis Advisors was attracted by Merrill's ``strengthened'' management team and ``unique franchise,'' said Kenneth Feinberg, who helps oversee more than $100 billion, including the Davis Financial Fund, which has declined 4.6 percent this year. Davis had a 0.2 percent stake in Merrill at the end of September, according to a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.
``One of my first priorities at Merrill Lynch was to strengthen the firm's balance sheet, and today we have made great progress towards that by bolstering our capital position through these investments,'' Thain said in the statement.
Merrill is a passive, minority investor in Bloomberg LP, the parent of Bloomberg News.
Governments in the Middle East and Asia have agreed to invest more than $25 billion in Wall Street firms since banks began to disclose subprime losses. Merrill's shares slumped 40 percent in New York Stock Exchange composite trading this year, cutting its market value to $47.5 billion.
Temasek's Bets
``Temasek has a long record of global investments,'' said Masafumi Oshiden, a Tokyo-based fund manager at BlackRock Japan Co., whose parent company holds $1.1 trillion of assets.
Set up in 1974 to run state assets, Temasek now manages a portfolio of more than $100 billion that includes controlling stakes in seven of Singapore's 10 biggest publicly traded companies.
It holds 18 percent of London-based Standard Chartered Plc and 28 percent of DBS Group Holdings Ltd., Southeast Asia's largest bank.
``Many take the view that the worst is probably over,'' said Teng Ngiek Lian, who oversees $3 billion as head of Target Asset Management in Singapore. ``Merrill's valuation looks interesting. They've written down their books to a comfortable level and I'm sure Temasek would have done its homework.''
Temasek, owned by Singapore's finance ministry, has notched up an 18 percent average annual return since its inception. It raised more than $800 million in the past month selling part of its stakes in China Construction Bank Corp. and Bank of China Ltd., the nation's second- and third-largest lenders.
Abu Dhabi, China
Citigroup, the biggest U.S. bank by assets, said Nov. 27 that Abu Dhabi would invest $7.5 billion in the New York-based company. State-controlled China Investment Corp. is buying almost 10 percent of Morgan Stanley for $5 billion after the second-biggest U.S. securities firm reported a loss of $9.4 billion from mortgage-related holdings on Dec. 19.
Government of Singapore Investment Corp., along with an unidentified Middle Eastern investor, agreed this month to inject 13 billion Swiss francs ($11.2 billion) into UBS, the biggest Swiss bank. The government's fund manager, known as GIC, manages more than $100 billion of the nation's foreign reserves.
``The valuation for banks seems very reasonable, which is why the sovereign wealth funds are keen,'' Target Asset's Teng said. ``We, too, are more bullish about banks generally.''
Investments by sovereign funds may give some respite to banking stocks battered by at least $96 billion of credit- related related losses at the world's biggest financial institutions.
Bear in China
The investment by sovereign funds ``just shores up confidence and will boost banking shares to a certain extent,'' said Nicholas Yeo, who helps oversee more than $40 billion in Asian equities at Aberdeen Asset Management. ``Maybe the outlook is not so bad.''
Bear Stearns Cos., the securities firm that helped trigger the collapse of the subprime market, struck an agreement in October with China's government-controlled Citic Securities Co. for a $1 billion cross-investment. The New York-based company announced a $1.9 billion writedown on mortgage losses Dec. 20, sending the firm to its first quarterly loss since it went public in 1985.
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