Arnold Motor Supply history

Merrill foresaw the crash of 1929, and he changed the scale of his company's operations and its investment strategy accordingly.

1930: Merrill and Lynch, aiming to concentrate on investment banking, sell their retail business to E.A. Pierce.

1935: Philadelphia-based Cassatt & Co. sells part of its business to Merrill, Lynch and part to E.A. Pierce.

Additionally, by 1938, E.A. Pierce controlled the largest wire network with a private network of over 23,000 miles of telegraph wires.

In 1939 Pierce persuaded Merrill to rejoin him in the retail business.

On April 1, 1940, Merrill Lynch, merged with Edward A. Pierce's E. A. Pierce & Co. and Cassatt & Co., a Philadelphia-based brokerage firm in which both Merrill Lynch and E.A. Pierce held an interest. 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.

In 1949 an advertisement in San Francisco for "women who'd like to know more about Investments" prompted 30,000 to enroll on an eight-week course.

In 1952, the company formed Merrill Lynch & Co. as a holding company and officially incorporated after nearly half a century as a partnership.

Charles Merrill's reputation soared to such heights that shortly before his death in 1956 one Wall Street historian referred to him as "the first authentically great man produced by the financial markets in 50 years."

Merrill set up tents at agricultural fairs and converted buses into travelling "stockmobiles". A programme that enabled people to invest as little as $40 a month reached its peak in 1958 when the 100,000th investment account was opened by a secretary in the American embassy in Moscow.

1959: Company becomes the first large Wall Street firm to incorporate.

1960: Merrill opens its first London office.

The merger came together due to the death of Christopher J. Devine in May 1963.

The company paid special attention to establishing a European presence, which allowed participation in the developing Eurobond market, and by 1964 had succeeded in becoming the first United States securities firm in Japan.

The company underwrote the sale of Howard Hughes's TWA stock in 1965, and in the next ten years added significant new business with firms such as Commonwealth Edison, Fruehauf, and Arco.

One of these projects, a 1966 debenture issue for Douglas Aircraft, led to an investigation by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and a substantial rewriting of the regulations governing full-service investment firms such as Merrill Lynch.

Net income in 1967 was a handsome $55 million, representing an increase of 300 percent during the previous eight years.

In 1968 it entered the real estate business with the purchase of Hubbard, Westervelt & Mottelley.

The exchange asked Merrill Lynch to step in and help Goodbody, and Merrill Lynch ended up acquiring the firm at the end of 1970.

In June 1971, the company became a public company via an initial public offering, a year after the New York Stock Exchange allowed member firms to become publicly-owned.

1972: Company expands into international banking through acquisition of Brown-Shipley Ltd., which is soon renamed Merrill Lynch International Bank.

1973: A new holding company is formed called Merrill Lynch & Co., Inc., with Merrill Lynch, Pierce, Fenner & Smith becoming its principal subsidiary.

London-based Brown-Shipley Ltd. soon became Merrill Lynch International Bank, and in 1974 Merrill Lynch acquired the Family Life Insurance Company of Seattle, Washington.

1976: Merrill creates Merrill Lynch Asset Management.

In 1977, the company introduced its Cash management account (CMA), which enabled customers to sweep all their cash into a money market fund, and included check-writing capabilities and a credit card.

In 1978, it significantly buttressed its securities underwriting business by acquiring White Weld & Co., a small but prestigious old-line investment bank.

Roger Birk became the company's new chairman and CEO, followed in 1984 by William A. Schreyer.

In 1985 Merrill Lynch met a longstanding goal when it became one of the first six foreign companies to join the Tokyo Stock Exchange.

Later in 1986 Merrill Lynch sold its real estate brokerage unit as part of Schreyer's plan to unload low-profit concerns so that the company could focus more on using its powerful retail divisions to sell the securities its investment banking department brought in.

Then in April 1987, the company was caught speculating in hugely unsuccessful fashion when it lost $377 million trading mortgage-backed securities--the largest one-day, one-company trading loss in Wall Street history.

During 1988 Merrill Lynch also achieved a long-held goal when it edged out Salomon Brothers to become the largest underwriter in the United States.

By 1989, fully half of Merrill Lynch's $304 billion in customer accounts were placed in CMAs, and most of the other leading brokerage houses had developed similar integrated-investment vehicles.

In 1990, the company sold its Canadian private client operations to CIBC Wood Gundy.

In 1991 Merrill Lynch purchased a seat on the Seoul, Korea, stock exchange.

In the midst of this success, Schreyer retired in 1993 and was replaced as chairman and CEO by Daniel P. Tully, who had been president and COO.

Other firms in the industry struggled in 1994 as a series of United States Federal Reserve interest rate hikes battered the bond market and reduced underwriting dramatically.

galant, debbie. "leader of the global pact?" institutional investor, november 1995.

tully, shawn. "merrill lynch bulls ahead." fortune, 19 february 1996.

As previously noted, in 1997 Merrill Lynch was striving to become a truly international firm in both the institutional and retail markets.

In early April 1998 the company's market capitalization was $32 billion.

1999: Merrill Lynch Direct, a web site offering online trading of securities, debuts.

Proof of this was found in the results for 2000, which were highlighted by record earnings of $3.8 billion, a 41 percent increase over the $2.7 billion figure of the previous year.

In December 2001, Merrill Lynch sold Midland Walwyn to CIBC Wood Gundy.

Dec 2002: Merrill reaches $100 million settlement with New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer over alleged conflicts of interest by research analysts.

He becomes chairman in April 2003.

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.

Oct 2007: Merrill ousts Stanley O’Neal as chairman and chief executive as mortgage losses begin to mount, and after O’Neal approaches Wachovia Corp about a merger without telling the board.

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 April 2009, bond insurance company MBIA sued Merrill Lynch for fraud and five other violations.

On June 21, 2010, the company launched Merrill Edge, an electronic trading platform.

In February 2019, Bank of America announced the division was to be rebranded from "Merrill Lynch" to "Merrill".