As demand for debt backed by commercial mortgages rise in recent months, yield-hungry investors are ready to make bets on loans packaged to non-traditional properties, the Financial Times reported.

Banks are growing more reliant on the growing market for equities as they get nearly half of their fourth quarter investment banking revenues from equity trading and underwriting, the Financial Times reported.

The Financial Times reported two banks divested trade finance assets amounting to $1 billion in a securitization that would get these assets to institutional investors from bank balance sheets.

Bob Diamond, the former boss of Barclays, is set to return to banking by listing a shell company in London in the next few weeks to invest in the African financial sector, a source familiar with the matter said.

U.S. cinema chain AMC Entertainment Holdings Inc plans to raise as much as $368 million from an initial public offering of 18.4 million Class A shares.

South Korea is exiting from the country's second-biggest non-performing loan manager Woori F&I Co. Ltd. At least three bidders including MBK Partners, KB Financial Group and Daishin Securities will place their final bids for the bad-loan unit.

Ashland, a chemical manufacturer, is in talks with at least seven private equity firms that are all interested in purchasing its water technologies unit in a deal that could fetch upwards of USD 1.5 billion.

Pfizer Ltd, the Indian unit of U.S. drug maker Pfizer Inc, is to take over local affiliate Wyeth Ltd. Shareholders of Wyeth will get seven Pfizer Ltd shares for every 10 shares held.

A Saturday announcement revealed that Pfizer Ltd, Pfizer Inc's Indian unit, would be merging with its local affiliate Wyeth Ltd after both pharmaceutical firms' boards approved the deal.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average, for the first time, closed above the psychological threshold of 16,000, extending a stock rally that had already experienced a 22% spike so far this year.