Ticker Talk

As expected, Merrill Lynch & Co. said Tuesday it will acquire Herzog Heine Geduld Inc., the third-largest Nasdaq market maker, in a $900-million stock deal. The deal marks a big push by Merrill back into the business of buying and selling Nasdaq stocks to facilitate investors’ trades. . . .

W.R. Hambrecht & Co., an online investment bank, raised $83 million Tuesday from a group of 11 investors including American Express, Scudder Kemper Investment and Texas Pacific Group. The money will bolster the firm’s capital as it makes private equity investments alongside clients. The San Francisco firm, founded in 1998, pioneered using auctions to distribute initial public offerings. With the new cash, Hambrecht has taken in $143 million, giving it a cushion if the slumping IPO market curtails revenue and sets back its own plans to go public, said J.D. Delafield, operations chief. “We’ve got the comfort of not needing to [sell shares] for awhile.” . . .

Members of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange Tuesday overwhelmingly approved a plan to demutualize the exchange, a significant step toward making the CME the first U.S. futures exchange to convert to a for-profit corporation. The exchange said 98% of its members voted for the plan to transform the member-owned exchange into a public firm. . . .

The chairmen of two key Senate committees have agreed to push legislation to keep the government from regulating over-the-counter derivative securities. Agriculture Committee Chairman Richard Lugar and Banking Committee Chairman Phil Gramm will keep working together on the measure, Gramm said.