Merrill Lynch led Bank of America to be the largest in the world

On January 1, 2009 Bank of America Corporation completed its acquisition of Merrill Lynch & Co., Inc. The purchase makes Bank of America the largest wealth management business in the world. Besides, it also adds strengths in debt and equity underwriting, sales and trading, and merger and acquisition advice. Under terms of the agreement, shareholders of Merrill Lynch received .8595 shares of Bank of America common stock for each common share of Merrill Lynch.

Now Bank of America has about 20,000 financial advisors and more than $2 trillion in client assets. Global investment management capabilities will include approximately 50 percent ownership in BlackRock Inc., which at September 30 had $1.26 trillion in assets under management. Bank of America had $564 billion in assets under management in the same period.

According to earlier announcements Bank of America expects to achieve $7 billion in pre-tax expense savings. These cost reductions forecasted to fully complete by 2012 will be achieved at the expense of the elimination of positions announced on December 11, and the reduction of overlapping technology, vendor and marketing expenses. Additionally the company counts on benefiting from offering its broad product suite to existing Merrill Lynch customers.