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Merrill Lynch Investment Managers history
Merrill Lynch Investment Managers company history timeline
1885: Burrill & Housman is founded as a partnership.
In 1890 William Burrill left the firm he had created, and the next year Arthur Housman's brother Clarence joined what was then A.A. Housman & Company.
1891: Following the departure of one of the founders, the company is renamed A.A. Housman & Company, which soon becomes one of Wall Street's leading brokerage houses.
When Arthur Housman died in 1907, he left behind one of Wall Street's leading brokerage houses.
1914: Charles E Merrill & Co opens its doors in January.
founded: 1914 as merrill lynch & co.
In 1914 Charles Merrill set up his own brokerage firm, and in the following year he convinced his friend Edmund Lynch to join him.
He received his initial training in the bond department of Burr & Company, and then set up his own firm in 1914.
1915: Merrill, Lynch & Company is formed by Charles Merrill and Edmund Lynch.
After a 1926 merger with Gwathmey & Company, the firm was renamed E.A. Pierce & Company the following year.
Merrill foresaw the crash of 1929, and he changed the scale of his company's operations and its investment strategy accordingly.
Nevertheless, in 1930 Merrill and Lynch sold the firm's retail business to E.A. Pierce & Co.
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.
In 1939 Pierce persuaded Merrill to rejoin him in the retail business.
In 1941 the firm merged again; it absorbed Fenner & Beane, the nation's largest commodities house.
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."
1956: Merrill helps take Ford Motor Co public, giving the firm its first billion-dollar year in underwriting.
1958: Firm changes its name to Merrill Lynch, Pierce, Fenner & Smith.
1959: Company becomes the first large Wall Street firm to incorporate.
1960: Merrill opens its first London office.
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.
In 1964 Merrill Lynch entered the government-securities business when it acquired C.J. Devine, the nation's largest and most prestigious specialist in that market.
1964: Firm enters the government-securities business through purchase of C.J. Devine.
1964: Merrill buys C.J. Devine, becoming a dealer in fixed-income securities.
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.
In 1970 it absorbed the New York Stock Exchange's fifth-largest firm, Goodbody & Company, which brought the company new expertise in the areas of unit trusts and options.
The exchange asked Merrill Lynch to step in and help Goodbody, and Merrill Lynch ended up acquiring the firm at the end of 1970.
1971: Merrill goes public and lists on the New York Stock Exchange.
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 Merrill Lynch introduced its Cash Management Account (CMA), which allowed individual investors to write checks and make VISA charges.
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.
1987: Wall Street crash sends profits reeling.
But profitability recovered quickly, and Merrill recorded $463 million in profits in 1988.
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 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.
The firm still faced bad publicity and possible legal action stemming from its role as the main investment bank of Orange County, California, which declared bankruptcy in 1994.
But in 1994 he steered the firm through a disastrous bond market and kept it profitable, while many competing firms lost money.
Another international milestone reached in 1994 was the opening of an office in Beijing, making Merrill Lynch the first United States securities firm to open an office in the People's Republic of China.
By 1994 Merrill Lynch had achieved an average ROE of at least 15 percent across business cycles.
galant, debbie. "leader of the global pact?" institutional investor, november 1995.
In 1995 it bought Smith New Court of the United Kingdom, which significantly enhanced its position in European stock markets.
After purchasing the British brokerage Smith New Court in 1995, it had the largest stock research department in the world.
1995: The leading independent securities firm in England, Smith New Court PLC, is acquired.
tully, shawn. "merrill lynch bulls ahead." fortune, 19 february 1996.
rothstein, betsy. "merrill lynch service links the deaf to the financial investment world." knight-ridder/tribune business news, 31 july 1996.
Operating margins expanded to 60.2 percent from 57.8 percent in 1996.
In 1996 Merrill Lynch was ranked among the world's largest underwriters of stocks and bonds, which finance large organizations.
In 1996 Merrill's joint venture, PT Merrill Lynch Indonesia, was granted a securities license and joined the Jakarta Stock Exchange.
Further international deals and branch openings meant that by 1996, 30 percent of revenues was generated outside the United States.
In 1997 the company's revenues rose 27 percent to $31.7 billion.
On a broader basis, Merrill Lynch also became at the end of 1997 the first brokerage firm to have more than $1 trillion in customer assets.
In early April 1998 the company's market capitalization was $32 billion.
——. "merrill lynch takes over." fortune, 6 april 1998.
As of early 1998, Merrill Lynch was the largest securities firm in number of brokers and the leading underwriter of United States stocks and bonds.
Further expansion in Asia came in 1998 with the purchase of 33 branches and the hiring of 2,100 employees from the failed Japanese firm Yamaichi Securities.
The firm also acquired Midland Walwyn Inc., a Canadian broker-dealer, in 1998 for $850 million.
Under increasing pressure from Internet-savvy competitors, such as Charles Schwab Corporation, Merrill Lynch belatedly took the plunge into online trading in December 1999 with the launch of Merrill Lynch Direct.
1999: Merrill is world’s largest underwriter of stocks and bonds for the last time, a title it cedes the next year to Citigroup Inc.
In December 2000 Merrill Lynch and London-based HSBC Holdings plc launched a joint venture aiming to offer online banking and investment services to people in Europe and Asia having more than $100,000 to invest and wanting to make their own financial decisions.
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.
2001: Most of Merrill’s 9,000 Wall Street employees evacuate their offices opposite the World Trade Center during the 9/11 attacks.
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.
2006: Merrill adds billions of dollars of mortgages to its balance sheet.
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.
2008: Losses top $19.2 billion in the year ended June 30, as credit losses $40 billion.
Sept 15, 2008: Merrill agrees to be acquired by Bank of America for $29 per share.
BofA Global Research was named one of the top global research firms in 2020 by Institutional Investor magazine.1
In 2020, Forbes released their "Top Next-Generation Wealth Advisors" list, focused on younger advisors who are the "next-generation" of wealth advisors.
Merrill Lynch Wealth Management defined contribution and total retirement statements take the #1 spots in their respective rankings in DALBAR’s “Trends and Best Practices in Investor Statements.”—May 25, 2021
We're pleased to announce that Merrill had 23 Private Wealth Management teams named to the 2021 list.
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