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At the height of the financial crisis, Bank of America (BAC) acquired Merrill Lynch for $50 billion. Over the past year, Merrill's ranks have thinned from 18,000 down to 15,000.
Merrill's "thundering herd," as it was once known, was a powerhouse dealing largely with retail customers. Interestingly enough, even with the advent of electronic trading, many wealthy clients prefer to deal directly with a broker. B of A has a big book of 17 million "mass affluent" customers who need advice and services. "Mass affluent" customers are those whose income is between $100,000 and $1 million in investable assets.
Merrill has an excellent training program for beginning brokers. Bank of America wants to use Merrill's know-how to train a new group of brokers numbering up to 2,000. They prefer this method over head-hunting for established brokers with a "big book," or the heavy hitters, as they are known on Wall Street. This route is costly. It would mean trying to recruit brokers from other established firms.
For anyone who is willing to work hard, this is a golden opportunity. Many of the largest firms deal mainly with institutional and hedge fund clients. This would be working at the grass roots level, calling, and advising wealthy clients what to do with their money. It requires a working knowledge of many markets; i.e. stock, bond, commodities, currencies, funds, etc.
Would you apply for this job?
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