Big deals from the East

Merrill Lynch, the troubled US investment bank, which is expected to be hit by a total credit crunch write-off of $16 billion (£8 billion) this year, is understood to be in advanced talks with the Singapore Government’s Temasek Holdings over a $5 billion injection of capital.

Merrill has been one of the world's biggest sub-prime casualties and is expected to write down a further $8 billion in the fourth quarter, which could take its total mortgage losses this year to $15.9 billion.

People familiar with the talks confirmed today reports this morning that the board of Temasek has been given preliminary approval for the investment in Merrill, although price, timing and regulatory issues have yet to be negotiated.

Analysts have suggested that if Merrill’s writedowns get much worse, it could sell its 20 per cent stake in Bloomberg, the financial information company, or its 49 per cent stake in BlackRock, the US fund manger.

Temasek Holdings is one of two Singapore Government investment vehicles and one of the oldest sovereign funds, with an estimated $108 billion of assets.

It owns 15.3 per cent of Standard Chartered, the Asian-focused UK bank.

The injection into Merrill Lynch is the latest in a series of emergency funding deals by Middle Eastern and Far Eastern investors into credit crisis-hit US investment banks.

On Wednesday, the rival bank Morgan Stanley said that it would sell a 9.9 per cent stake to the state-run China Investment Corp for $5 billion, and last month Citigroup received $7.5 billion of cash from the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority.

UBS, the Swiss investment bank said this month that it would sell a total stake of 11.5 per cent to the Government of Singapore Investment Corp and an unnamed Middle Eastern investor for $11.2 billion.

Speculation surfaced today that the Saudi Royal Family were the mystery investor injecting £871.8 million into the recapitalisation of UBS.

UBS declined to comment this morning and said that the owner of the stake did not have to be disclosed because the holding was less than 3 per cent.

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