The Merrill Lynch Footprint

Years ago it was a common refrain that “Merrill Lynch trains ‘The Street'”. Merrill was known as the best and most prolific trainer of rookie brokers. Competitors loved scooping up these newly minted, well -trained Advisors after their training period was over. Merrill never liked that too much and began suing the hiring firms and getting Temporary Restraining Orders (TROs) to scare the Advisors and their ardent suitors from repeating this travesty. The modern day recruiting wars had begun. It's nearing the end of 2009, Bob McCann is now running retail at UBS, and lo and behold, all of the major firms, and a couple of minor firms, are all being run at the highest level by ex-Merrill Lynch executives. Jim Hayes is at the top of the Private Client group at Wells, having defected from Merrill Lynch to Wachovia in January 2006. James Gorman is now the CEO of Morgan Stanley, after running the Private Client business at Morgan Stanley. He defected from Merrill Lynch later in 2006. In 2002, Bob Dineen, who held various senior management roles at Merrill Lynch including responsibility for all fee based businesses, defected to run the Broker-Dealer business at Lincoln Financial. And in 2001, Joseph Moglia, who had been running the entire product area of Merrill, the culmination of his 17 year career there, left to become the CEO of TD Ameritrade, where he is now Chairman. I'm probably missing some, so if anyone out there can add to my list, I would appreciate it. What does this mean? First, it shows us that the corporate pyramid is awfully narrow at the top. Second, it shows us that “The Street” values Merrill Lynch trained executives. The famous bank robber, Willie Sutton, famously said that he robbed from banks because that's where the money was. Merrill's competitors poach from Merrill because that's where the talent is. One departing Merrill Advisor told me: “I'm not leaving Merrill Lynch. Merrill Lynch left me.” Time will tell if the new Merrill, now very clearly under the Bank of America umbrella, will produce the same talent and the same admiration that it did in the past.