clipped from www.nytimes.com

Citigroup and Merrill Lynch said on Tuesday that they were raising a combined $19.1 billion from parties that range from government-backed funds in Korea and Kuwait to New Jersey’s public pension fund and T. Rowe Price, the big mutual fund company. Other investors include a large bank in Japan, a hedge fund in New York and private investors in the Middle East.

While so-called sovereign wealth funds are investing the most, the emergence of new investors like New Jersey underscores the rising aversion on the part of United States banks to being seen as beholden to foreign governments. In recent months Citigroup, Merrill and several other banks have sold multibillion-dollar stakes to foreign government funds.