Merrill Lynch
Encyclopedia
Merrill Lynch is the wealth management
division of Bank of America
. With over 15,000 financial advisors and $2.2 trillion in client assets it is the world's largest brokerage. Formerly known as Merrill Lynch & Co., Inc., prior to 2009 the firm was publicly owned and traded on the New York Stock Exchange
under the ticker symbol MER. Merrill agreed to a purchase by Bank of America on September 14, 2008, at the height of the 2008 Financial Crisis. It ceased to exist as a separate entity in January 2009.
This article describes both the historical Merrill Lynch and its ongoing operations as a subsidiary of the Bank of America. Merrill Lynch is headquartered in New York City, and occupies the entire 34 stories of the Four World Financial Center
building in Manhattan
.
opened his Charles E. Merrill & Co. for business at 7 Wall Street
in New York City. A few months later, Merrill's friend, Edmund C. Lynch
, joined him, and in 1915 the name was officially changed to Merrill, Lynch & Co. At that time, the firm's name included a comma
between Merrill and Lynch. In 1916, Winthrop H. Smith
joined the firm.
In its early history, Merrill, Lynch & Co. made several successful investments. In 1921, the company purchased Pathé Exchange
, which later became RKO Pictures
. In 1926, the firm made its most significant financial investment at the time, purchasing a controlling interest in Safeway
, transforming the small grocery store into the country's third largest grocery store chain by the early 1930s.
In 1930, Charles Merrill
led the firm through a major restructuring, spinning-off the company's retail brokerage business to E.A. Pierce & Co.
to focus on investment banking. Along with the business, Merrill also transferred the bulk of its employees, including Edmund C. Lynch
and Winthrop H. Smith
. Charles Merrill received a minority interest in E.A. Pierce in the transaction. Throughout the 1930s, E.A. Pierce remained the largest brokerage in the U.S. The firm, led by Edward A. Pierce
, Edmund Lynch and Winthrop Smith would also prove one of the most innovative in the industry, introducing IBM machines into the business' record keeping. Additionally, by 1938, E.A. Pierce would control the largest wire network with a private network of over 23,000 miles of telegraph wires. These wires were typically used for trade execution
.
Despite its strong position in the market, E.A. Pierce was struggling financially in the 1930s and was thinly capitalized. Following the death of Edmund C. Lynch
in 1938, Winthrop Smith began discussions with Charles E. Merrill
, who owned a minority interest in E.A. Pierce about a possible merger of the two firms. On April 1, 1940, Merrill Lynch, E.A. Pierce & Cassatt was formed when the two firms merged and also acquired Cassatt & Co., a Philadelphia-based brokerage firm in which both Merrill Lynch and E.A. Pierce held an interest.
In 1940, the firm merged with Edward A. Pierce
's E. A. Pierce & Co. and Cassatt & Co. and was briefly known as Merrill Lynch, E. A. Pierce, and Cassatt. The company became the first on Wall Street to publish an annual fiscal report in 1941.
The following year, in 1941, Merrill Lynch, E. A. Pierce and Cassatt merged with Fenner & Beane, a New Orleans-based investment bank and commodities company. Throughout the 1930s, Fenner & Beane
was consistently the second largest securities firm in the U.S. The combined firm, which became the clear leader in securities brokerage in the U.S., was renamed Merrill Lynch, Pierce, Fenner & Beane.
In 1952, the company formed Merrill Lynch & Co. as a holding company
and officially incorporated after nearly half a century as a partnership. On December 31, 1957, The New York Times
referred to that name as "a sonorous bit of Americana" and said "After sixteen years of popularizing [it], Merrill Lynch, Pierce, Fenner, and Beane is going to change it—and thereby honor the man who has been largely responsible for making the name of a brokerage house part of an American saga," Winthrop H. Smith
, who had been running the company since 1940. The merger made the company the largest securities firm in the world, with offices in over 98 cities and membership on 28 exchanges. At the start of the firm's fiscal year on March 1, 1958, the firm's name became 'Merrill Lynch, Pierce, Fenner & Smith' and the company became a Big Board member of the New York Stock Exchange
.
In 1964, Merrill Lynch acquired C. J. Devine & Co the leading dealer in U.S. Government Securities. The merger came together due to the death of Christopher J. Devine in May 1963. The C. J. Devine & Co. partners, referred to as "The Devine Boys", formed Merrill Lynch Government Securities Inc., giving the firm a strong presence in the government securities market. The Government Securities business brought Merrill Lynch the needed leverage to establish many of the unique money market products and government bond mutual fund products, responsible for much of the firm's growth in the 1970s and 1980s.
directly. In contrast, many established Wall Street firms, such as Morgan Stanley
, relied on groups of independent brokers for placement of the securities they underwrote. Until as late as 1970, it was known as the "Catholic" firm of Wall Street. The firm went public in 1971 and became a multinational corporation
with over US $1.8 trillion in client assets, operating in more than 40 countries around the world. In 1977, the company introduced its Cash Management Account (CMA), which enabled customers to sweep all their cash into a money market mutual fund, and included check-writing capabilities and a credit card. Fortune
magazine called it "the most important financial innovation in years." In 1978, it significantly buttressed its securities underwriting business by acquiring White Weld & Co.
, a small but prestigious old-line investment bank. Merrill Lynch was well known for its Global Private Client services and its strong sales force.
, for a massive $400 million to settle accusations that it sold inappropriate and risky investments to former county treasurer Robert Citron
. Citron lost $1.69 billion, which forced the county to file for bankruptcy in December 1994. The county sued a dozen or more securities companies, advisors and accountants, but Merrill settled without admitting liability in June 1998. The county was able to recover about $600 million in total, including the $400 million from Merrill.
and remove E. Stanley O'Neal as its chief executive. O'Neal had earlier approached Wachovia bank for a merger, without prior Board approval, but the talks ended after O'Neal's dismissal. Merrill Lynch named John Thain
as their new CEO that month. In his first days at work in December 2007, Thain made changes in Merrill Lynch's top management, announcing that he would bring in former NYSE colleagues such as Nelson Chai
as CFO and Margaret D. Tutwiler
as head of communications. Late that month, the firm announced it would sell its commercial finance business to General Electric
and sell off major shares of its stock to Temasek Holdings
, a Singapore
government investment group, in an effort to raise capital. The deal raised over $6 billion.
In July 2008, Thain announced $4.9 billion fourth quarter losses for the company from defaults and bad investments in the ongoing mortgage crisis. In one year between July 2007 and July 2008, Merrill Lynch lost $19.2 billion, or $52 million daily. The company's stock price had also declined significantly during that time. Two weeks later, the company announced the sale of select hedge funds and securities in an effort to reduce their exposure to mortgage related investments. Temasek Holdings agreed to purchase the funds and increase its investment in the company by $3.4 billion.
Andrew Cuomo
, New York Attorney General, threatened to sue Merrill Lynch in August 2008, over their misrepresentation of the risk on mortgage-backed securities. A week earlier, Merrill Lynch had offered to buy back $12 billion in auction-rate debt and said they were surprised by the lawsuit. Three days later, the company froze hiring and revealed that they had charged almost $30 billion in losses to their subsidiary in the United Kingdom, exempting them from taxes in that country. On August 22, 2008, CEO John Thain announced an agreement with the Massachusetts Secretary of State
to buy back all auction-rate securities from customers with less than $100 million in deposit with the firm, beginning in October 2008 and expanding in January 2009. On September 5, 2008 Goldman Sachs
downgraded Merrill Lynch's stock to "conviction sell" and warned of further losses from the company. Bloomberg reported in September 2008 that Merrill Lynch had lost $51.8 billion in mortgage-backed securities as part of the subprime mortgage crisis.
(CDO) market in the early 2000s. According to an article in Credit magazine, Merrill's rise to be the leader of the CDO market began in 2003 when Christopher Ricciardi brought his CDO team from Credit Suisse First Boston
to Merrill. In 2005 Merrill took out advertisements in the back of Derivatives Week magazine, touting the fact that its Global Markets and Investing Group was the "#1 global underwriter of CDOs in 2004". To provide a ready supply of mortgages for the CDOs, Merrill purchased First Franklin Financial Corp.
, one of the largest subprime lenders in the country, in December 2006. BusinessWeek
would later describe how between 2006 and 2007, Merrill was "lead underwriter" on 136 CDOs worth $93 billion. By the end of 2007, the value of these CDOs was collapsing, but Merrill had held onto portions of them, creating billions of dollars in losses for the company. In mid 2008, Merrill sold a group of CDOs that had once been valued at $30.6 billion to Lone Star Funds
for $1.7 billion in cash and a $5.1 billion loan.
In April 2009, bond insurance
company MBIA sued Merrill Lynch for fraud and five other violations. These were related to the credit default swap
"insurance" contracts Merrill had bought from MBIA on four of Merrill's mortgage-based collateralized debt obligation
s. These were the "ML-Series" CDOs, Broderick CDO 2, Highridge ABS CDO I, Broderick CDO 3, and Newbury Street CDO. MBIA claimed, among other things, that Merrill defrauded MBIA about the quality of these CDOs, and that it was using the complicated nature of these particular CDOs (CDOs squared and cubed) to hide the problems it knew about in the securities that the CDOs were based on. However, in 2010 Justice Bernard Fried disallowed all but one of the charges: the claim by MBIA that Merrill had committed breach of contract
by promising the CDOs were worthy of an AAA rating when, it alleges, in reality they weren't. When the CDOs lost value, MBIA wound up owing Merrill a large amount of money. Merrill disputed MBIA's claims.
In 2009 Rabobank
sued Merrill over a CDO named Norma. Rabobank later claimed that its case against Merrill was very similar to the SEC's fraud charges against Goldman Sachs
and its Abacaus CDOs. Rabobank alleged that a hedge fund named Magnetar Capital
had chosen assets to go into Norma, and allegedly bet against them, but that Merrill had not informed Rabobank of this fact. Instead, Rabobank alleges that Merrill told it that NIR Group was selecting the assets. When the CDO value tanked, Rabobank was left owing Merrill a large amount of money. Merrill disputed the arguments of Rabobank, with a spokesman claiming "The two matters are unrelated and the claims today are not only unfounded but weren’t included in the Rabobank lawsuit filed nearly a year ago".
ultimately led to its sale. During the week of September 8, 2008, Lehman Brothers
came under severe liquidity pressures, with its survival in question. If Lehman Brothers failed, investors were afraid that the contagion could spread to the other surviving investment banks. [Lehman Brothers filed bankruptcy on September 15, 2008, after government officials could not find a merger partner for it.] On Sunday, September 14, 2008, Bank of America
announced it was in talks to purchase Merrill Lynch for $38.25 billion in stock. The Wall Street Journal
reported later that day that Merrill Lynch was sold to Bank of America for 0.8595 shares of Bank of America common stock for each Merrill Lynch common share, or about US$50 billion or $29 per share. This price represented a 70.1% premium over the September 12 closing price or a 38% premium over Merrill's book value
of $21 a share, but that also meant a discount of 61% from its September 2007 price. Congressional testimony by Bank of America CEO Kenneth Lewis
, as well as internal emails released by the House Oversight Committee, indicate that Bank of America was threatened with the firings of the management and board of Bank of America as well as damaging the relationship between the bank and federal regulators, if Bank of America did not go through with the acquisition of Merrill Lynch.
In March 2009 it was reported that in 2008, Merrill Lynch received billions of dollars from its insurance arrangements with AIG
, including $6.8bn from funds provided by the United States taxpayers to bail out AIG.
A well known analyst at Merrill Lynch named Henry Blodget
wrote in company e-mails in which Blodget gave assessments about stocks which conflicted with what was publicly published by Merrill. In 2003, he was charged with civil securities fraud by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. He settled without admitting or denying the allegations and was subsequently barred from the securities industry for life. He paid a $2 million fine and $2 million disgorgement.
The CEO at that time, David Komansky, said, "I want...to publicly apologize to our clients, our shareholders, and our employees," for the company falling short of its professional standards in research.
investigation where the government criminally charged any officials from the banks and securities firms that allegedly helped the energy giant execute its accounting fraud. The case revolved around a 1999 transaction involving Merrill, Enron and the sale of some electricity-producing barges off the coast of Nigeria. The charges surrounded the 1999 sale of an interest in Nigerian energy barges by an Enron entity to Merrill Lynch was a sham that allowed Enron to illegally book about $12 million in pretax profit, when in fact there was no real sale and no real profit.
Four former Merrill top executives and two former midlevel Enron officials faced conspiracy and fraud charges. Merrill cut its own deal, firing bankers and agreeing to the outside oversight of its structured-finance transactions. It also settled civil fraud charges brought by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, without admitting or denying fault.
(EEOC) brought suit against Merrill Lynch, alleging the firm discriminated against Dr. Majid Borumand because of his Iranian
nationality and Islamic religion, with "reckless disregard" for his protected civil rights. The EEOC law suit maintains that violations by members of the firm were intentional and committed with malice
. In another case concerning mistreatment of another Iranian employee by Merrill Lynch on July 20, 2007, a NASD arbitration
panel ordered Merrill Lynch to pay its former Iranian employee, Fariborz Zojaji, $1.6 million for firing him due to his Persian ethnicity. Merrill Lynch's actions prompted reactions from both the National Iranian-American council, and the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee
.
In its June 2008 issue, Diversity Inc. named Merrill Lynch one of the top 10 companies for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgendered employees, and the No.7 top company in the US for diversity overall. In 2007, Merrill Lynch was named the No.2 best company in the US for people with disabilities by Diversity Magazine. As of June 5, 2008, Merrill Lynch has created the West Asian, Middle Eastern and North African (WAMENA) Professional Network to help support and provide additional resources for employees of diverse backgrounds. In May 2008, Merrill Lynch was named the No.1 US company for "Diverse College Graduates" by Diversity Edge magazine, edging out Microsoft for the top spot on the rankings.
New Jersey appeals court on August 13, 2008 rendered a ruling against Merrill Lynch in a discrimination law suit filed by a gay employee.
The Merrill bonuses were determined by Merrill's Compensation Committee at its meeting of December 8, 2008, shortly after BOA shareholders approved the merger but before financial results for the fourth quarter had been determined. This appeared to be a departure from normal company practice, since the type of bonus Merrill awarded was a performance bonus that, according to company policy, was supposed to reflect all four quarters of performance and was paid in January or later. In this case, however, the bonuses were awarded in December before fourth-quarter performance had been determined.
They were also very large relative to the TARP monies allocated to Merrill. The Merrill bonuses were the equivalent of 36.2% of TARP monies Treasury allocated to Merrill. Merrill employees had to have a salary of at least $300,000 and have attained the title of Vice President or higher to be eligible.
Wealth management
Wealth management is an investment advisory discipline that incorporates financial planning, investment portfolio management and a number of aggregated financial services...
division of Bank of America
Bank of America
Bank of America Corporation, an American multinational banking and financial services corporation, is the second largest bank holding company in the United States by assets, and the fourth largest bank in the U.S. by market capitalization. The bank is headquartered in Charlotte, North Carolina...
. With over 15,000 financial advisors and $2.2 trillion in client assets it is the world's largest brokerage. Formerly known as Merrill Lynch & Co., Inc., prior to 2009 the firm was publicly owned and traded on the New York Stock Exchange
New York Stock Exchange
The New York Stock Exchange is a stock exchange located at 11 Wall Street in Lower Manhattan, New York City, USA. It is by far the world's largest stock exchange by market capitalization of its listed companies at 13.39 trillion as of Dec 2010...
under the ticker symbol MER. Merrill agreed to a purchase by Bank of America on September 14, 2008, at the height of the 2008 Financial Crisis. It ceased to exist as a separate entity in January 2009.
This article describes both the historical Merrill Lynch and its ongoing operations as a subsidiary of the Bank of America. Merrill Lynch is headquartered in New York City, and occupies the entire 34 stories of the Four World Financial Center
Four World Financial Center
Four World Financial Center or is a part of the World Financial Center complex in Lower Manhattan, which houses the international headquarters and main US trading floors of Merrill Lynch....
building in Manhattan
Manhattan
Manhattan is the oldest and the most densely populated of the five boroughs of New York City. Located primarily on the island of Manhattan at the mouth of the Hudson River, the boundaries of the borough are identical to those of New York County, an original county of the state of New York...
.
Founding and early history
The company was founded on January 6, 1914, when Charles E. MerrillCharles E. Merrill
Charles Edward Merrill was an American philanthropist, stockbroker and co-founder, with Edmund C. Lynch of Merrill Lynch & Company .-Early years:...
opened his Charles E. Merrill & Co. for business at 7 Wall Street
Wall Street
Wall Street refers to the financial district of New York City, named after and centered on the eight-block-long street running from Broadway to South Street on the East River in Lower Manhattan. Over time, the term has become a metonym for the financial markets of the United States as a whole, or...
in New York City. A few months later, Merrill's friend, Edmund C. Lynch
Edmund C. Lynch
Edmund Calvert Lynch and his friend, Charles E. Merrill, formed Merrill Lynch on October 15, 1915.-Early years:Edmund Lynch was born on May 19, 1885 in Baltimore, Maryland to Richard Lynch and Jennie Vernon Smith Lynch...
, joined him, and in 1915 the name was officially changed to Merrill, Lynch & Co. At that time, the firm's name included a comma
Comma (punctuation)
The comma is a punctuation mark. It has the same shape as an apostrophe or single closing quotation mark in many typefaces, but it differs from them in being placed on the baseline of the text. Some typefaces render it as a small line, slightly curved or straight but inclined from the vertical, or...
between Merrill and Lynch. In 1916, Winthrop H. Smith
Winthrop H. Smith
Winthrop H. Smith also known as Win Smith was an American businessman and investment banker. He was notable as a name partner of Merrill Lynch, Pierce, Fenner & Smith....
joined the firm.
In its early history, Merrill, Lynch & Co. made several successful investments. In 1921, the company purchased Pathé Exchange
Pathé
Pathé or Pathé Frères is the name of various French businesses founded and originally run by the Pathé Brothers of France.-History:...
, which later became RKO Pictures
RKO Pictures
RKO Pictures is an American film production and distribution company. As RKO Radio Pictures Inc., it was one of the Big Five studios of Hollywood's Golden Age. The business was formed after the Keith-Albee-Orpheum theater chains and Joseph P...
. In 1926, the firm made its most significant financial investment at the time, purchasing a controlling interest in Safeway
Safeway Inc.
Safeway Inc. , a Fortune 500 company, is North America's second largest supermarket chain after The Kroger Co., with, as of December 2010, 1,694 stores located throughout the western and central United States and western Canada. It also operates some stores in the Mid-Atlantic region of the Eastern...
, transforming the small grocery store into the country's third largest grocery store chain by the early 1930s.
In 1930, Charles Merrill
Charles E. Merrill
Charles Edward Merrill was an American philanthropist, stockbroker and co-founder, with Edmund C. Lynch of Merrill Lynch & Company .-Early years:...
led the firm through a major restructuring, spinning-off the company's retail brokerage business to E.A. Pierce & Co.
E.A. Pierce & Co.
E.A. Pierce & Co. was a securities brokerage firm based in New York City. Originally founded as A.A. Housman & Co., the firm was renamed for Edward A. Pierce in 1927. In 1930, following the stock market crash of 1929 E.A. Pierce acquired the brokerage business of Merrill Lynch. Ten years later,...
to focus on investment banking. Along with the business, Merrill also transferred the bulk of its employees, including Edmund C. Lynch
Edmund C. Lynch
Edmund Calvert Lynch and his friend, Charles E. Merrill, formed Merrill Lynch on October 15, 1915.-Early years:Edmund Lynch was born on May 19, 1885 in Baltimore, Maryland to Richard Lynch and Jennie Vernon Smith Lynch...
and Winthrop H. Smith
Winthrop H. Smith
Winthrop H. Smith also known as Win Smith was an American businessman and investment banker. He was notable as a name partner of Merrill Lynch, Pierce, Fenner & Smith....
. Charles Merrill received a minority interest in E.A. Pierce in the transaction. Throughout the 1930s, E.A. Pierce remained the largest brokerage in the U.S. The firm, led by Edward A. Pierce
Edward A. Pierce
Edward A. Pierce was an American businessman and stock broker. Pierce was most notable for leading the firm of A.A. Housman & Company through the 1920s and 1930s and turning the firm into the largest brokerage in the U.S. The firm, which was renamed E.A. Pierce & Co...
, Edmund Lynch and Winthrop Smith would also prove one of the most innovative in the industry, introducing IBM machines into the business' record keeping. Additionally, by 1938, E.A. Pierce would control the largest wire network with a private network of over 23,000 miles of telegraph wires. These wires were typically used for trade execution
Order (exchange)
An order in a market such as a stock market, bond market, commodity market or financial derivative market is an instruction from customers to brokers to buy or sell on the exchange.These instructions can be simple or complicated...
.
Despite its strong position in the market, E.A. Pierce was struggling financially in the 1930s and was thinly capitalized. Following the death of Edmund C. Lynch
Edmund C. Lynch
Edmund Calvert Lynch and his friend, Charles E. Merrill, formed Merrill Lynch on October 15, 1915.-Early years:Edmund Lynch was born on May 19, 1885 in Baltimore, Maryland to Richard Lynch and Jennie Vernon Smith Lynch...
in 1938, Winthrop Smith began discussions with Charles E. Merrill
Charles E. Merrill
Charles Edward Merrill was an American philanthropist, stockbroker and co-founder, with Edmund C. Lynch of Merrill Lynch & Company .-Early years:...
, who owned a minority interest in E.A. Pierce about a possible merger of the two firms. On April 1, 1940, Merrill Lynch, E.A. Pierce & Cassatt was formed when the two firms merged and also acquired Cassatt & Co., a Philadelphia-based brokerage firm in which both Merrill Lynch and E.A. Pierce held an interest.
In 1940, the firm merged with Edward A. Pierce
Edward A. Pierce
Edward A. Pierce was an American businessman and stock broker. Pierce was most notable for leading the firm of A.A. Housman & Company through the 1920s and 1930s and turning the firm into the largest brokerage in the U.S. The firm, which was renamed E.A. Pierce & Co...
's E. A. Pierce & Co. and Cassatt & Co. and was briefly known as Merrill Lynch, E. A. Pierce, and Cassatt. The company became the first on Wall Street to publish an annual fiscal report in 1941.
The following year, in 1941, Merrill Lynch, E. A. Pierce and Cassatt merged with Fenner & Beane, a New Orleans-based investment bank and commodities company. Throughout the 1930s, Fenner & Beane
Fenner & Beane
Fenner & Beane was a brokerage firm based in New Orleans, Louisiana. Originally founded as Fenner Gatling & Beane in 1916, the firm was renamed in 1919. The firm was founded by the Beane Brothers, New Orleans cotton merchants, to manage their exposure to fluctuations in commodity prices.In 1941,...
was consistently the second largest securities firm in the U.S. The combined firm, which became the clear leader in securities brokerage in the U.S., was renamed Merrill Lynch, Pierce, Fenner & Beane.
In 1952, the company formed Merrill Lynch & Co. as a holding company
Holding company
A holding company is a company or firm that owns other companies' outstanding stock. It usually refers to a company which does not produce goods or services itself; rather, its purpose is to own shares of other companies. Holding companies allow the reduction of risk for the owners and can allow...
and officially incorporated after nearly half a century as a partnership. On December 31, 1957, The New York Times
The New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
referred to that name as "a sonorous bit of Americana" and said "After sixteen years of popularizing [it], Merrill Lynch, Pierce, Fenner, and Beane is going to change it—and thereby honor the man who has been largely responsible for making the name of a brokerage house part of an American saga," Winthrop H. Smith
Winthrop H. Smith
Winthrop H. Smith also known as Win Smith was an American businessman and investment banker. He was notable as a name partner of Merrill Lynch, Pierce, Fenner & Smith....
, who had been running the company since 1940. The merger made the company the largest securities firm in the world, with offices in over 98 cities and membership on 28 exchanges. At the start of the firm's fiscal year on March 1, 1958, the firm's name became 'Merrill Lynch, Pierce, Fenner & Smith' and the company became a Big Board member of the New York Stock Exchange
New York Stock Exchange
The New York Stock Exchange is a stock exchange located at 11 Wall Street in Lower Manhattan, New York City, USA. It is by far the world's largest stock exchange by market capitalization of its listed companies at 13.39 trillion as of Dec 2010...
.
In 1964, Merrill Lynch acquired C. J. Devine & Co the leading dealer in U.S. Government Securities. The merger came together due to the death of Christopher J. Devine in May 1963. The C. J. Devine & Co. partners, referred to as "The Devine Boys", formed Merrill Lynch Government Securities Inc., giving the firm a strong presence in the government securities market. The Government Securities business brought Merrill Lynch the needed leverage to establish many of the unique money market products and government bond mutual fund products, responsible for much of the firm's growth in the 1970s and 1980s.
Rise to prominence
Merrill Lynch rose to prominence on the strength of its brokerage network (15,000+ as of 2006), sometimes referred to as the "thundering herd", that allowed it to place securities it underwroteUnderwriting
Underwriting refers to the process that a large financial service provider uses to assess the eligibility of a customer to receive their products . The name derives from the Lloyd's of London insurance market...
directly. In contrast, many established Wall Street firms, such as Morgan Stanley
Morgan Stanley
Morgan Stanley is a global financial services firm headquartered in New York City serving a diversified group of corporations, governments, financial institutions, and individuals. Morgan Stanley also operates in 36 countries around the world, with over 600 offices and a workforce of over 60,000....
, relied on groups of independent brokers for placement of the securities they underwrote. Until as late as 1970, it was known as the "Catholic" firm of Wall Street. The firm went public in 1971 and became a multinational corporation
Multinational corporation
A multi national corporation or enterprise , is a corporation or an enterprise that manages production or delivers services in more than one country. It can also be referred to as an international corporation...
with over US $1.8 trillion in client assets, operating in more than 40 countries around the world. In 1977, the company introduced its Cash Management Account (CMA), which enabled customers to sweep all their cash into a money market mutual fund, and included check-writing capabilities and a credit card. Fortune
Fortune (magazine)
Fortune is a global business magazine published by Time Inc. Founded by Henry Luce in 1930, the publishing business, consisting of Time, Life, Fortune, and Sports Illustrated, grew to become Time Warner. In turn, AOL grew as it acquired Time Warner in 2000 when Time Warner was the world's largest...
magazine called it "the most important financial innovation in years." In 1978, it significantly buttressed its securities underwriting business by acquiring White Weld & Co.
White Weld & Co.
White Weld & Co. was a Boston-based investment bank, historically managed by Boston Brahmins until its sale to Merrill Lynch in 1978. The Weld family name can be traced back to the founding of Massachusetts in the 1630s.-History:...
, a small but prestigious old-line investment bank. Merrill Lynch was well known for its Global Private Client services and its strong sales force.
Orange County settlement
Merrill Lynch settled with Orange County, CaliforniaOrange County, California
Orange County is a county in the U.S. state of California. Its county seat is Santa Ana. As of the 2010 census, its population was 3,010,232, up from 2,846,293 at the 2000 census, making it the third most populous county in California, behind Los Angeles County and San Diego County...
, for a massive $400 million to settle accusations that it sold inappropriate and risky investments to former county treasurer Robert Citron
Robert Citron
Robert Lafee Citron is a Democratic Party politician who was the longtime Treasurer-Tax Collector of Orange County, California, when it declared Chapter 9 bankruptcy on December 6, 1994. Citron was the only Democrat to hold office in otherwise Conservative/Republican Orange County at the time...
. Citron lost $1.69 billion, which forced the county to file for bankruptcy in December 1994. The county sued a dozen or more securities companies, advisors and accountants, but Merrill settled without admitting liability in June 1998. The county was able to recover about $600 million in total, including the $400 million from Merrill.
Subprime mortgage crisis
In November 2007, Merrill Lynch announced it would write-down $8.4 billion in losses associated with the national housing crisisSubprime mortgage crisis
The U.S. subprime mortgage crisis was one of the first indicators of the late-2000s financial crisis, characterized by a rise in subprime mortgage delinquencies and foreclosures, and the resulting decline of securities backed by said mortgages....
and remove E. Stanley O'Neal as its chief executive. O'Neal had earlier approached Wachovia bank for a merger, without prior Board approval, but the talks ended after O'Neal's dismissal. Merrill Lynch named John Thain
John Thain
John Alexander Thain is an American businessman, investment banker, and currently chairman and CEO of the CIT Group.Thain was the last chairman and chief executive officer of Merrill Lynch before its merger with Bank of America...
as their new CEO that month. In his first days at work in December 2007, Thain made changes in Merrill Lynch's top management, announcing that he would bring in former NYSE colleagues such as Nelson Chai
Nelson Chai
Nelson J. Chai is an American investment banker. He formerly served as the chief financial officer of American financial services company Merrill Lynch and briefly as Bank of America's president for the Asia-Pacific region...
as CFO and Margaret D. Tutwiler
Margaret D. Tutwiler
Margaret DeBardeleben Tutwiler is a former Under Secretary for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs at the US State Department, serving from December 16, 2003 to June 30, 2004. She was confirmed by the U.S. Senate on December 9, 2003 to replace outgoing Under Secretary Charlotte Beers...
as head of communications. Late that month, the firm announced it would sell its commercial finance business to General Electric
General Electric
General Electric Company , or GE, is an American multinational conglomerate corporation incorporated in Schenectady, New York and headquartered in Fairfield, Connecticut, United States...
and sell off major shares of its stock to Temasek Holdings
Temasek Holdings
Temasek Holdings is an investment company owned by the government of Singapore. With an international staff of 380 people, it manages a portfolio of about S$193 billion at end of March 2011, focused primarily in Asia...
, a Singapore
Singapore
Singapore , officially the Republic of Singapore, is a Southeast Asian city-state off the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula, north of the equator. An island country made up of 63 islands, it is separated from Malaysia by the Straits of Johor to its north and from Indonesia's Riau Islands by the...
government investment group, in an effort to raise capital. The deal raised over $6 billion.
In July 2008, Thain announced $4.9 billion fourth quarter losses for the company from defaults and bad investments in the ongoing mortgage crisis. In one year between July 2007 and July 2008, Merrill Lynch lost $19.2 billion, or $52 million daily. The company's stock price had also declined significantly during that time. Two weeks later, the company announced the sale of select hedge funds and securities in an effort to reduce their exposure to mortgage related investments. Temasek Holdings agreed to purchase the funds and increase its investment in the company by $3.4 billion.
Andrew Cuomo
Andrew Cuomo
Andrew Mark Cuomo is the 56th and current Governor of New York, having assumed office on January 1, 2011. A member of the Democratic Party, he was the 64th New York State Attorney General, and was the 11th United States Secretary of Housing and Urban Development...
, New York Attorney General, threatened to sue Merrill Lynch in August 2008, over their misrepresentation of the risk on mortgage-backed securities. A week earlier, Merrill Lynch had offered to buy back $12 billion in auction-rate debt and said they were surprised by the lawsuit. Three days later, the company froze hiring and revealed that they had charged almost $30 billion in losses to their subsidiary in the United Kingdom, exempting them from taxes in that country. On August 22, 2008, CEO John Thain announced an agreement with the Massachusetts Secretary of State
Massachusetts Secretary of the Commonwealth
The Massachusetts Secretary of the Commonwealth is the principal public information officer of the state government of the U.S...
to buy back all auction-rate securities from customers with less than $100 million in deposit with the firm, beginning in October 2008 and expanding in January 2009. On September 5, 2008 Goldman Sachs
Goldman Sachs
The Goldman Sachs Group, Inc. is an American multinational bulge bracket investment banking and securities firm that engages in global investment banking, securities, investment management, and other financial services primarily with institutional clients...
downgraded Merrill Lynch's stock to "conviction sell" and warned of further losses from the company. Bloomberg reported in September 2008 that Merrill Lynch had lost $51.8 billion in mortgage-backed securities as part of the subprime mortgage crisis.
CDO controversies
Merrill Lynch, like many other banks, became heavily involved in the mortgage-based collateralized debt obligationCollateralized debt obligation
Collateralized debt obligations are a type of structured asset-backed security with multiple "tranches" that are issued by special purpose entities and collateralized by debt obligations including bonds and loans. Each tranche offers a varying degree of risk and return so as to meet investor demand...
(CDO) market in the early 2000s. According to an article in Credit magazine, Merrill's rise to be the leader of the CDO market began in 2003 when Christopher Ricciardi brought his CDO team from Credit Suisse First Boston
Credit Suisse First Boston
Credit Suisse First Boston was the former name of the banking firm Credit Suisse.-History:In 1978, Credit Suisse and First Boston Corporation formed a London-based 50-50 investment banking joint venture called the Financière Crédit Suisse-First Boston...
to Merrill. In 2005 Merrill took out advertisements in the back of Derivatives Week magazine, touting the fact that its Global Markets and Investing Group was the "#1 global underwriter of CDOs in 2004". To provide a ready supply of mortgages for the CDOs, Merrill purchased First Franklin Financial Corp.
First Franklin Financial Corp.
First Franklin Financial Corp. was a home mortgage lender that specialized in subprime loans.It had been owned by two of the biggest casualties of the subprime mortgage crisis, National City Corp. in Cleveland and Merrill Lynch...
, one of the largest subprime lenders in the country, in December 2006. BusinessWeek
BusinessWeek
Bloomberg Businessweek, commonly and formerly known as BusinessWeek, is a weekly business magazine published by Bloomberg L.P. It is currently headquartered in New York City.- History :...
would later describe how between 2006 and 2007, Merrill was "lead underwriter" on 136 CDOs worth $93 billion. By the end of 2007, the value of these CDOs was collapsing, but Merrill had held onto portions of them, creating billions of dollars in losses for the company. In mid 2008, Merrill sold a group of CDOs that had once been valued at $30.6 billion to Lone Star Funds
Lone Star Funds
Lone Star Funds is a worldwide private equity firm based in Dallas, Texas, that specializes in purchasing distressed companies and assets, often well-known consumer brands that have seen better times or gone through financial difficulties due to leveraged buy-outs...
for $1.7 billion in cash and a $5.1 billion loan.
In April 2009, bond insurance
Bond insurance
Bond insurance is a type of insurance whereby an insurance company guarantees scheduled payments of interest and principal on a bond or other security in the event of a payment default by the issuer of the bond or security...
company MBIA sued Merrill Lynch for fraud and five other violations. These were related to the credit default swap
Credit default swap
A credit default swap is similar to a traditional insurance policy, in as much as it obliges the seller of the CDS to compensate the buyer in the event of loan default...
"insurance" contracts Merrill had bought from MBIA on four of Merrill's mortgage-based collateralized debt obligation
Collateralized debt obligation
Collateralized debt obligations are a type of structured asset-backed security with multiple "tranches" that are issued by special purpose entities and collateralized by debt obligations including bonds and loans. Each tranche offers a varying degree of risk and return so as to meet investor demand...
s. These were the "ML-Series" CDOs, Broderick CDO 2, Highridge ABS CDO I, Broderick CDO 3, and Newbury Street CDO. MBIA claimed, among other things, that Merrill defrauded MBIA about the quality of these CDOs, and that it was using the complicated nature of these particular CDOs (CDOs squared and cubed) to hide the problems it knew about in the securities that the CDOs were based on. However, in 2010 Justice Bernard Fried disallowed all but one of the charges: the claim by MBIA that Merrill had committed breach of contract
Breach of contract
Breach of contract is a legal cause of action in which a binding agreement or bargained-for exchange is not honored by one or more of the parties to the contract by non-performance or interference with the other party's performance....
by promising the CDOs were worthy of an AAA rating when, it alleges, in reality they weren't. When the CDOs lost value, MBIA wound up owing Merrill a large amount of money. Merrill disputed MBIA's claims.
In 2009 Rabobank
Rabobank
Rabobank is a financial services provider with offices worldwide. Their main location is in the Netherlands. They are a global leader in Food and Agri financing and in sustainability-oriented banking...
sued Merrill over a CDO named Norma. Rabobank later claimed that its case against Merrill was very similar to the SEC's fraud charges against Goldman Sachs
Goldman Sachs
The Goldman Sachs Group, Inc. is an American multinational bulge bracket investment banking and securities firm that engages in global investment banking, securities, investment management, and other financial services primarily with institutional clients...
and its Abacaus CDOs. Rabobank alleged that a hedge fund named Magnetar Capital
Magnetar Capital
Magnetar Capital is a hedge fund based in Evanston, Illinois. Among its many activities, the firm was actively involved in the collateralized debt obligation market during the 2006–2007 period...
had chosen assets to go into Norma, and allegedly bet against them, but that Merrill had not informed Rabobank of this fact. Instead, Rabobank alleges that Merrill told it that NIR Group was selecting the assets. When the CDO value tanked, Rabobank was left owing Merrill a large amount of money. Merrill disputed the arguments of Rabobank, with a spokesman claiming "The two matters are unrelated and the claims today are not only unfounded but weren’t included in the Rabobank lawsuit filed nearly a year ago".
Sale to Bank of America
Significant losses were attributed to the drop in value of its large and unhedged mortgage portfolio in the form of Collateralized Debt Obligations. Trading partners' loss of confidence in Merrill Lynch's solvency and ability to refinance short-term debtMoney market
The money market is a component of the financial markets for assets involved in short-term borrowing and lending with original maturities of one year or shorter time frames. Trading in the money markets involves Treasury bills, commercial paper, bankers' acceptances, certificates of deposit,...
ultimately led to its sale. During the week of September 8, 2008, Lehman Brothers
Lehman Brothers
Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. was a global financial services firm. Before declaring bankruptcy in 2008, Lehman was the fourth largest investment bank in the USA , doing business in investment banking, equity and fixed-income sales and trading Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. (former NYSE ticker...
came under severe liquidity pressures, with its survival in question. If Lehman Brothers failed, investors were afraid that the contagion could spread to the other surviving investment banks. [Lehman Brothers filed bankruptcy on September 15, 2008, after government officials could not find a merger partner for it.] On Sunday, September 14, 2008, Bank of America
Bank of America
Bank of America Corporation, an American multinational banking and financial services corporation, is the second largest bank holding company in the United States by assets, and the fourth largest bank in the U.S. by market capitalization. The bank is headquartered in Charlotte, North Carolina...
announced it was in talks to purchase Merrill Lynch for $38.25 billion in stock. The Wall Street Journal
The Wall Street Journal
The Wall Street Journal is an American English-language international daily newspaper. It is published in New York City by Dow Jones & Company, a division of News Corporation, along with the Asian and European editions of the Journal....
reported later that day that Merrill Lynch was sold to Bank of America for 0.8595 shares of Bank of America common stock for each Merrill Lynch common share, or about US$50 billion or $29 per share. This price represented a 70.1% premium over the September 12 closing price or a 38% premium over Merrill's book value
Book value
In accounting, book value or carrying value is the value of an asset according to its balance sheet account balance. For assets, the value is based on the original cost of the asset less any depreciation, amortization or Impairment costs made against the asset. Traditionally, a company's book value...
of $21 a share, but that also meant a discount of 61% from its September 2007 price. Congressional testimony by Bank of America CEO Kenneth Lewis
Ken Lewis (executive)
Kenneth D. "Ken" Lewis is the former CEO, President, and Chairman of Bank of America, the largest bank in the United States and second largest in the world. On September 30th, 2009 Bank of America confirmed that Ken Lewis would be retiring by the end of the year...
, as well as internal emails released by the House Oversight Committee, indicate that Bank of America was threatened with the firings of the management and board of Bank of America as well as damaging the relationship between the bank and federal regulators, if Bank of America did not go through with the acquisition of Merrill Lynch.
In March 2009 it was reported that in 2008, Merrill Lynch received billions of dollars from its insurance arrangements with AIG
AIG
AIG is American International Group, a major American insurance corporation.AIG may also refer to:* And-inverter graph, a concept in computer theory* Answers in Genesis, a creationist organization in the U.S.* Arta Industrial Group in Iran...
, including $6.8bn from funds provided by the United States taxpayers to bail out AIG.
Global Reach
Bank of America Merrill Lynch spans the Globe with divisions in United States, South America, Europe, and Asia. The U.S. headquarters are located in New York, South American Headquarters are at Brazil and Uruguay, European headquarters are based in London, and Asia headquarters are based in Hong Kong.Analyst Research settlement
In 2002, Merrill Lynch settled for a fine of $100 million for publishing misleading research. As part of the agreement with the New York attorney general and other state securities regulators, Merrill Lynch agreed to increase research disclosure and work to decouple research from investment banking.A well known analyst at Merrill Lynch named Henry Blodget
Henry Blodget
Henry Blodget is an American former equity research analyst, currently banned from the securities industry, who was senior Internet analyst for CIBC Oppenheimer during the dot-com bubble and the head of the global Internet research team at Merrill Lynch...
wrote in company e-mails in which Blodget gave assessments about stocks which conflicted with what was publicly published by Merrill. In 2003, he was charged with civil securities fraud by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. He settled without admitting or denying the allegations and was subsequently barred from the securities industry for life. He paid a $2 million fine and $2 million disgorgement.
The CEO at that time, David Komansky, said, "I want...to publicly apologize to our clients, our shareholders, and our employees," for the company falling short of its professional standards in research.
Enron/Merrill Lynch Nigerian barge
In 2004 convictions of Merrill executives marked the only instance in the EnronEnron
Enron Corporation was an American energy, commodities, and services company based in Houston, Texas. Before its bankruptcy on December 2, 2001, Enron employed approximately 22,000 staff and was one of the world's leading electricity, natural gas, communications, and pulp and paper companies, with...
investigation where the government criminally charged any officials from the banks and securities firms that allegedly helped the energy giant execute its accounting fraud. The case revolved around a 1999 transaction involving Merrill, Enron and the sale of some electricity-producing barges off the coast of Nigeria. The charges surrounded the 1999 sale of an interest in Nigerian energy barges by an Enron entity to Merrill Lynch was a sham that allowed Enron to illegally book about $12 million in pretax profit, when in fact there was no real sale and no real profit.
Four former Merrill top executives and two former midlevel Enron officials faced conspiracy and fraud charges. Merrill cut its own deal, firing bankers and agreeing to the outside oversight of its structured-finance transactions. It also settled civil fraud charges brought by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, without admitting or denying fault.
Discrimination charges
On June 26, 2007, the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity CommissionEqual Employment Opportunity Commission
The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission is an independent federal law enforcement agency that enforces laws against workplace discrimination. The EEOC investigates discrimination complaints based on an individual's race, color, national origin, religion, sex, age, perceived intelligence,...
(EEOC) brought suit against Merrill Lynch, alleging the firm discriminated against Dr. Majid Borumand because of his Iranian
Iranian peoples
The Iranian peoples are an Indo-European ethnic-linguistic group, consisting of the speakers of Iranian languages, a major branch of the Indo-European language family, as such forming a branch of Indo-European-speaking peoples...
nationality and Islamic religion, with "reckless disregard" for his protected civil rights. The EEOC law suit maintains that violations by members of the firm were intentional and committed with malice
Malice (legal term)
Malice is a legal term referring to a party's intention to do injury to another party. Malice is either expressed or implied. Malice is expressed when there is manifested a deliberate intention unlawfully to take away the life of a human being...
. In another case concerning mistreatment of another Iranian employee by Merrill Lynch on July 20, 2007, a NASD arbitration
Arbitration
Arbitration, a form of alternative dispute resolution , is a legal technique for the resolution of disputes outside the courts, where the parties to a dispute refer it to one or more persons , by whose decision they agree to be bound...
panel ordered Merrill Lynch to pay its former Iranian employee, Fariborz Zojaji, $1.6 million for firing him due to his Persian ethnicity. Merrill Lynch's actions prompted reactions from both the National Iranian-American council, and the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee
American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee
The American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee states that it is the largest Arab American grassroots civil rights organization in the United States. According to its web page it is open to people of all backgrounds, faiths and ethnicities and has over 40 chapters in 24 states and members in all...
.
In its June 2008 issue, Diversity Inc. named Merrill Lynch one of the top 10 companies for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgendered employees, and the No.7 top company in the US for diversity overall. In 2007, Merrill Lynch was named the No.2 best company in the US for people with disabilities by Diversity Magazine. As of June 5, 2008, Merrill Lynch has created the West Asian, Middle Eastern and North African (WAMENA) Professional Network to help support and provide additional resources for employees of diverse backgrounds. In May 2008, Merrill Lynch was named the No.1 US company for "Diverse College Graduates" by Diversity Edge magazine, edging out Microsoft for the top spot on the rankings.
New Jersey appeals court on August 13, 2008 rendered a ruling against Merrill Lynch in a discrimination law suit filed by a gay employee.
Market timing settlement
In 2002 Merrill Lynch settled for 10 million civil penalty as a result of improper activities that took place out of the firm's Fort Lee New Jersey office. Three financial advisors, and a fourth who was involved to a lesser degree, placed 12,457 trades for a client Millennium Partners in at least 521 mutual funds and 63 mutual fund sub-accounts of at least 40 variable annuities. Millennium made profits in over half of the funds and fund sub-accounts. In those funds where Millennium made profits, its gains totaled about $60 million. Merrill Lynch failed to reasonably supervise these financial advisers, whose market timing siphoned short-term profits out of mutual funds and harmed long-term investors.2008 bonus payments
Merrill Lynch arranged for payment of billions in bonuses in what appeared to be "special timing". These bonuses totaling $3.6 billion were one-third of the money they received from the feds' TARP bailout. In addition, the timing of these bonuses angered many American people because they were authorized before the bank was to be acquired by Bank of America. It is now a foregone conclusion that without the rescue by BOA, Merrill would have collapsed. In 2008, Merrill lost billions yet still paid out 3.6 billion in bonuses.The Merrill bonuses were determined by Merrill's Compensation Committee at its meeting of December 8, 2008, shortly after BOA shareholders approved the merger but before financial results for the fourth quarter had been determined. This appeared to be a departure from normal company practice, since the type of bonus Merrill awarded was a performance bonus that, according to company policy, was supposed to reflect all four quarters of performance and was paid in January or later. In this case, however, the bonuses were awarded in December before fourth-quarter performance had been determined.
They were also very large relative to the TARP monies allocated to Merrill. The Merrill bonuses were the equivalent of 36.2% of TARP monies Treasury allocated to Merrill. Merrill employees had to have a salary of at least $300,000 and have attained the title of Vice President or higher to be eligible.
Industry awards
- Ranked No.1 in Barron's 2010 Top 1000 Advisors
- Ranked No.1 in Barron's 2010 list for most advisors with No. 1 ranking in their state
- Ranked No.1 in Barron's 2009 Top 1000 Advisors
- Ranked No.1 in Barron's 2009 list for most advisors with No. 1 ranking in their state
- Institutional Investor
- Ranked No.3 in 2009 All-America Fixed-Income Research Team Survey
- Ranked No.1 for Pan European coverage in the 2009 All-Europe Research team survey
- Ranked No.3 in 2009 for Emerging EMEA coverage
- Ranked No.3 in the 2009 All-Latin America survey and No.2 in the All-Brazil survey
- Ranked No.5 in the 2009 All-Asia Research team survey
- Ranked No.3 in 2009 All-America Equity Research Team Survey
- Alpha Magazine – Ranked No.3 by hedge funds in survey for All-Asia research teams
- Forbes/Zacks – Best Brokerage for stock picking and estimate accuracy; captured more than twice the awards of the runner-up. Seven out of 12 analysts named to “Dazzling Dozen”
- Wall Street Journal “ Best on the Street Stock Picking” Award – No.3 in the U.S.; 17 ranked analysts
- Thomson Reuters Extel – No.1 for Pan-European Equity Sectors Rsch; No.2 for Pan-European Equity & Equity Linked Rsch; No.2 for Continental European Small & Mid Caps Rsch
- Financial Times/StarMine
- Ranked No.1 Global Broker, No.1 US Broker; No.2 Europe Broker and No.5 Pan-Asia Broker; received 42 individual analyst awards (May 2009)
- Ranked No.1 in the U.S., No.2 in Latin America, No.2 in Asia Pacific ex-Japan, No.3 in Developed Europe in the 2009 for earnings forecasts; Ranked No.4 in Asia Pacific ex-Japan, and No.5 in Latin America in the 2009 for Stock Recommendations
See also
- Global settlementGlobal settlementThe Global Settlement was an enforcement agreement reached on April 28, 2003 between the SEC, NASD, NYSE, and ten of the United States's largest investment firms to address issues of conflict of interest within their businesses-Settlement Decision:...
- Primary dealersPrimary dealersPrimary dealer is a formal designation of a firm as a market maker of government securities. Primary dealer systems are present in many countries including Canada, France, Italy, Spain, the United Kingdom, and the United States...
- Credit crisis
- Credit squeeze
- Liquidity crisisLiquidity crisisIn financial economics, liquidity is a catch-all term that may refer to several different yet closely related concepts. Among other things, it may refer to Asset Market liquidity In financial economics, liquidity is a catch-all term that may refer to several different yet closely related...
- Wealth managementWealth managementWealth management is an investment advisory discipline that incorporates financial planning, investment portfolio management and a number of aggregated financial services...
- Private bankingPrivate bankingPrivate banking is banking, investment and other financial services provided by banks to private individuals investing sizable assets. The term "private" refers to the customer service being rendered on a more personal basis than in mass-market retail banking, usually via dedicated bank advisers...
- Private banking
- Broker-dealerBroker-dealerA broker-dealer is a term used in United States financial services regulations. It is a natural person, a company or other organization that trades securities for its own account or on behalf of its customers....
- World Wealth Report
- Merrill Lynch, Pierce, Fenner & Smith, Inc. v. DabitMerrill Lynch, Pierce, Fenner & Smith, Inc. v. DabitMerrill Lynch, Pierce, Fenner & Smith, Inc. v. Dabit, 547 U.S. 71 , was a case decided by the Supreme Court of the United States involving the extent to which state law securities fraud class action claims were preempted by the Securities Litigation Uniform Standards Act of 1998...
, a 2006 Supreme Court case involving securities fraud claims. - Merrill Lynch's Application
- Calibuso, et al. v. Bank of America Corp., et al.Calibuso, et al. v. Bank of America Corp., et al.On March 30, 2010, three female employees launched a class action gender discrimination lawsuit against Bank of America and Merrill Lynch.-External links:*****...
- Fulham DaviesFulham DaviesFulham Fairchild Davies, known as Ki Davies , was an Arkansas businessman who in 1923 opened the Merrill Lynch office in Little Rock...
External links
- Official website
- Total Merrill Website
- Yahoo! Finance – "Merrill Lynch & Co., Inc. Company Profile"
- Merrill Lynch Names Thomas J. Sanzone As Chief Administrative Officer
- "Blundering Herd" by Bethany McLean and Joe Nocera, Nov 2010 Vanity Fair p. 179