Bank of America is now one of the U.S.'s most trusted banking institutions. It looks after many Americans' money, recently issuing a major warning to customers over the economy.
Bank of America has an enormous 69 million customers across the U.S., operating in 35 countries with around 213,000 employees. As such, its name is famous worldwide. But some may not know that Bank of America bought another bank with a very iconic name.
Merrill Lynch was a famous Wall Street investment bank, known for wealth management and brokerage services, but during the 2008 financial crisis, Bank of America (BofA) acquired Merrill Lynch to prevent its collapse.
For many years, the two branches operated under different names but the same ownership. Merrill Lynch Wealth Management as for for individual investors and financial advisors, and BofA Merrill Lynch was used for investment banking and institutional services.
However, the decision was made in 1029 to simply the branding of the iconic banking institution.
Merrill Lynch Wealth Management became just “Merrill”, while BofA Merrill Lynch (the investment banking arm) became Bank of America Securities.
The bank's aim was to align everything under the same Bank of America brand, to help with streamlining branding. But they kept “Merrill” for wealth management.
At the time, CEO Brian Moynihan said: "We are continuing to unify the company, continuing down the road we started on a decade ago."
Merrill Lynch’s long history began in 1914, after it was founded by Charles Merrill and Edward Lynch, and went on to become one of the biggest firms on Wall Street, but faced problems as the 2000s subprime mortgage crisis unfolded.
According to the Wall Street Journal, Bank of America is dropping the Merrill Lynch name from those outfits. This will see the wealth-management business rebranded as just Merrill, a change to the banking giant’s operations with the name after they bought Merrill Lynch during the 2008 financial crisis.
The change ended the Merrill Lynch name's history on Wall Street, including being one of the few institutions that survived the financial crisis.
