  Inelastic and multi-nucleon transfer reactions between a $^{238}$U beam,
accelerated at 6.14 MeV/u, and a $^{12}$C target were used for the production
of neutron-rich, fissioning systems from U to Cm. A Si telescope, devoted to
the detection of the target-like nuclei, provided a characterization of the
fissioning systems in atomic and mass numbers, as well as in excitation energy.
Cross-sections, angular and excitation-energy distributions were measured for
the inelastic and transfer channels. Possible excitations of the target-like
nuclei were experimentally investigated for the first time, by means of g -ray
measurements. The decays from the first excited states of $^{12}$C, $^{11}$B
and $^{10}$Be were observed with probabilities of 0.12 - 0.14, while no
evidence for the population of higher-lying states was found. Moreover, the
fission probabilities of $^{238}$U, $^{239}$Np and $^{240,241,242}$Pu and
$^{244}$Cm were determined as a function of the excitation energy.
