Loss of Merrill Lynch brokers lower than expected, says Krawcheck
Not as many advisers have left Merrill Lynch as the industry believes, Sallie Krawcheck, president of Bank of America's Global Wealth and Investment Management division, said during a media call today.
Not as many advisers have left Merrill Lynch as the industry believes, Sallie Krawcheck, president of Bank of America’s Global Wealth and Investment Management division, said during a media call today.
The attrition rate at Merrill Lynch & Co. Inc. in the fourth quarter of 2009 reached a record low, Ms. Krawcheck said, after slowing from a higher pace earlier in the year. She made her comments while presenting a survey — Merrill Lynch Wealth Management’s Affluent Insights Quarterly — and she echoed something she had said on CNBC this morning.
Ms. Krawcheck suggested that the attrition rate is slower now because of the stability of the advising relationships and the financial assets behind Bank of America Corp. The combined businesses of BofA and Merrill Lynch formed one of the largest wealth management businesses in the world, with more than $2 trillion in total client assets and nearly 16,000 financial advisers when the two firms merged.
“We’ve seen some [attrition], but not as much as we would have expected,” Ms. Krawcheck said.
In a survey Merrill Lynch did of its advisers recently, Ms. Krawcheck noted, almost half believe that the merger with BofA has been good for them. “I’m not Pollyanna,” she said, but “the business feels better than the conventional wisdom out there has it.”
The firm plans to add to its head count, but “not an extremely high rate,” Ms. Krawcheck said. The firm will focus mostly on its training program, she said.
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