Merrill and Citigroup may spin-out brokerage units

Filed under: Rumors, Citigroup Inc. (C), Charles Schwab Corp (SCHW), Merrill Lynch (MER)Charles Schwab (NASDAQ: SCHW) has a market cap of more than $27 billion. Merrill Lynch's (NYSE: MER) is only $48 billion. That does not put much value on all of the Merrill businesses beyond its individual investor brokerage network. Because of metrics like that, there is speculation that both Merrill and Citigroup (NYSE: C), which owns Smith Barney, might do partial IPOs of their brokerage operations. It could do something for the shareholders of the companies. The institutional trading units of the big financial houses are dragging their value down. The mortgage-backed securities problems could keep it that way for some time. "It is an obvious thing for them to do. The shares in the brokerage bus