Market Update: Citigroup (NYSE: C), Comcast (NASDAQ: CMCSA), General Electric (NYSE: GE)

Citigroup (NYSE: C) rejected a request from Terra Firma Capital Partners to reduce EMI Group’s debt by 40 percent in return for a $1.7 billion cash injection.. Guy Hands’s private equity firm offered to provide the extra money if Citigroup agreed to reduce the record label’s 2.5 billion-pound debt by a similar amount, stated those who declined to be named because the talks are private. Citigroup spurned the offer because it would have forced it to write off some of the debt just as EMI’s profit rises. Hands bet about 30 percent of his 5.4 billion-euro private equity fund on EMI in 2007 at the height of the leveraged buyout boom. His firm has since written down the value of its stake in the music label by half as it battles to counteract a decline in revenue caused by consumers downloading music from the Internet instead of buying CDs. Hands said in September that if the deal had started a fortnight later he wouldn’t have bought EMI. -Bloomberg

Comcast (NASDAQ: CMCSA), the nation’s largest cable company, and General Electric (NYSE: GE), the giant industrial conglomerate, are finalizing an agreement that would create a new media titan anchored by NBC Universal. The deal would instantly remake the entertainment industry landscape. Negotiations are "moving in the right direction" but are not complete. –Daily Finance

U.S. retail sales jumped higher than expected in October on rebounding demand for cars, a sign the economy kept recovering despite climbing unemployment. Retail sales increased 1.4%, the Commerce Department said Monday, much better than the 0.9% increase projected by Wall Street for the first month of the fourth quarter. September sales, however, were revised down. –The Wall Street Journal

London, which has some of Europe’s worst air pollution, may have to ban cars and reschedule events during the 2012 Olympics to ensure optimum conditions for athletes, a leading air-quality scientist said. The U.K. capital is in a “new era” of air pollution, mostly caused by emissions from diesel-powered cars, vans and buses, said Professor Frank Kelly, director of the King’s College Environmental Research Group. The city of 7.5 million residents has the worst record for nitrogen dioxide pollutants among European capitals and one of the worst for dangerous airborne particles. Politicians including Mayor Boris Johnson aren’t doing enough to cleanse the air, Kelly said. Beijing last year and Athens in 2004 struggled with air pollution during the games. -Bloomberg