Merrill Lynch & Co., in a broad move to clean up its troubled balance sheet, said Monday it will sell a big slice of its toxic asset-backed securities and issue new stock to raise $8.5 billion of fresh capital.

The world’s largest brokerage, struggling to right itself as the credit crisis continues, said it will issue more than 200 million new common shares as part of the deal. Merrill said it will write-down $5.7 billion because of additional losses on the sale of mortgage securities and hedging contracts.

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