Merrill Lynch announced that it will be removing itself from the Tokyo stock exchange as part of the process to merge with Bank of America.
Bank of America offers .856 BAC shares for each share of Merrill Lynch.
In response to federal and state investigations, Merrill Lynch announced that it would buy back its retail clients' auction-rate securities at face value through July 2009. This move is part of Merrill's response to the claims that it deliberately misled clients in an attempt to prop up the ailing auction-rate securities market.
On July 23, Merrill Lynch and BlackRock announced an amendment in the agreement between the two companies. The news raised fears that Merrill might consider selling some of its 49.8% stake in BlackRock.
On July 17, 2008, Merrill Lynch announced its earnings results for the second quarter of 2008, which included a net loss of $4.7 billion and write downs of around $9.5 billion. Despite this news, which was worse than analysts had expected, Merrill's stock price rose with the stock market's general rally that day.
In an effort to expand its footprint in Latin America, Merrill Lynch purchased the oldest stock brokerage in Chile, Ureta y Bianchi Corredores de Bolsa. Merrill hopes to beef up its equities business in the region, as well as provide support for its expanding investment banking operations in Brazil.
In a conference call on June 11, 2008, Merrill Lynch's CEO John Thain said that the firm would consider selling some or all of its 20% stake in Bloomberg, which is valued at $5 billion to $6 billion. While he said that there were no plans to sell the stake as of the conference call, he acknowledged that further credit-related losses could make it necessary for Merrill to raise more capital and that selling the Bloomberg stake would be one of the options considered.[1]
Standard & Poor's lowered its rating for Merrill's debt to A from A+, saying that the investment bank may still have to take more writedowns on some of its assets. This downgrade may make it more difficult for Merrill to sell fixed-income derivatives and other securities backed by the company's debt.
Merrill Lynch reported full-year results from 2007, which showed a net loss for the year of $7.7 billion. The loss was due to write-offs on CDOs and mortgage-backed securities of nearly $23 billion for the year.
Merrill Lynch announced that it would be receiving an additional $6.6 billion in capital from a group of three foreign investors. This news came just before an analyst at Citibank predicted write-downs of $15bn at Merrill in the fourth quarter of 2007, worrying investors further.
An analyst at Goldman Sachs lowered his price target for Merrill Lynch to $59 from $66. This followed Merrill's announcement of more potential write-downs on subprime-related holdings in the fourth quarter of 2007.
On November 1, Citigroup announced further potential write-downs on subprime-related holdings, in addition to the $6 billion included in its third-quarter earnings report. This move led to speculation about the extent of other financial firms' exposure to subprime fallout, sending stocks in the sector, including Merrill's, downward.
Merrill Lynch, the world's largest brokerage, said today its embattled Chief Executive Stan O'Neal will retire, effective immediately.
The New York Times reported Merrill's board was considering replacing the company's CEO after learning he met with the CEO of Wachovia about a merger without first seeking board approval. O'Neal has presided over $8 billion in subprime mortgage-related write-downs and the largest quarterly loss of the company's history.
Just a few weeks after the company announced its $5.5 billion write down covered the extent of damage done by exposure to the subprime mortgage market, Merrill announced its write down would be nearly $8 billion. While announced on October 24th, the larger write down was rumored a week in advance.
Merrill Lynch indicates that it will write down $5.5B in subprime losses when it announces earnings later in October.
Merrill's stock dropped in line with that of other investment banks as the subprime lending crisis unfolded.
Merrill Lynch repurchased 31.1 million shares of its common stock for $2.8 billion and simultaneously
MER acquires 49.7% of Blackrock despite the popular opinion that they overpaid.
