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Merrill Lynch Wealth Management is the branded name for the wealth management division of Bank of America Corporation. The division offers, among other services, investment advisory services to individual investors, including those who are high net worth individuals, as well as to businesses, pension plans and other institutions. The firm also acts as a broker-dealer.
The bottom line: Merrill Lynch Wealth Management, the advisory arm of the massive Bank of America Corporation, offers portfolio and wealth management to individuals and businesses.
| Assets under management (AUM): $1,084,543,561,669 | |
| Minimum investment: No minimum investment overall, although some strategies may require one | |
| Individual investor to advisor ratio: 49:1 | |
| Fee structure: A percentage of AUM, fixed fees, commissions | |
| Headquarters: One Bryant Park New York, NY 10036 Website: www.ml.com Phone: 800-637-7455 |
All information included in this profile is accurate as of September 16, 2021. For more information, please consult Merrill Lynch Wealth Management’s website.
Merrill Lynch Wealth Management is the brand within parent company Bank of America Corporation that provides investment and wealth management services. Bank of America Corp. agreed to purchase Merrill Lynch and its over 16,000 financial advisors in 2008 in the depths of the financial crisis. The combined firms created the largest brokerage business in the country at that time.
However, each firm’s origins go back much further than that. Bank of America’s history traces back more than 240 years, while the Merrill brokerage shop opened its doors on Wall Street in 1914.
Today, Merrill Lynch Wealth Management’s investment advisory business is formally registered with regulators under the names Merrill Lynch, Pierce, Fenner and Smith Incorporated, as well as Managed Account Advisors, LLC. The former is licensed as a broker-dealer as well. The firm has over 36,000 employees, more than 27,000 of whom perform investment advisory functions.
The vast majority of the firm’s clients are individuals who do not have a high net worth. (For reference, the SEC defines a high net worth individual as someone with at least $750,000 under an advisor’s management or a net worth believed to be at least $1.5 million)
The firm does not have an across-the-board minimum investment requirement to open an account, though certain programs or investment strategies may require a minimum. For example, the robo-advisory account dubbed Merrill Guided Investing account requires a minimum of $1,000 for a strategy. On the other end of the spectrum, the Managed Account Service, which allows clients to choose their own preferred managers not available elsewhere through Merrill’s advisory program, requires a minimum of $100,000. The minimum for a Strategic Portfolio Advisor account goes all the way up to $2 million, although this requirement is negotiable, per the firm’s brochure.
Merrill Lynch Wealth Management provides investment management and wealth management services through many different programs. At the most basic level, the Merrill Guided Investing robo-advisor program offers clients the option to receive virtual help with setting goals and managing their portfolios.
Clients interested in having an in-person relationship can look to the more traditional Investment Advisory Program, where a dedicated financial advisor helps clients determine their goals and can manage their investment portfolio using a broad mix of potential investments. The firm also features programs that give clients access to third-party investment managers, who can be identified by a client’s financial advisor or chosen independently by the client.
Finally, the team is also registered as broker-dealers. Advisors can recommend specific investments or transactions but are compensated per trade, instead of by an annual fee based on the client’s assets under management.
Here is a full list of services offered:
Clients of Merrill Lynch Wealth Management can choose to give their advisor discretionary authority over their account, meaning the advisor chooses the investments based on the client’s goals and situation and handles the day-to-day activity in the account. Advisors can create custom accounts or choose managed strategies. Alternatively, clients can choose to get guidance from their advisor about what investments and managers may work for them, and then the client can make the final decisions around how to invest their money, which is a non-discretionary arrangement.
When starting a relationship with a dedicated advisor, clients will share their personal and financial goals and objectives, risk tolerance, time horizon and other key details. The advisor works with the client to choose specific target asset allocations. Typically, clients choose one or multiple, depending on their number of accounts, of the firm’s nine offered asset allocations:
Specific investments recommended may include:
Not all strategies will have access to the same investments. For example, the online Merrill Guided Investing programs offer only a limited number of Merrill-managed strategies that invest in mutual funds, cash and ETFs.
Most of Merrill Lynch Wealth Management’s programs charge an annual fee calculated as a percentage of assets under management. The fee is negotiated directly with each advisor, and largely depends on the program and the amount of money the client has invested with the advisor (some programs have account minimums).
Certain programs have standard fee schedules, as shown in the tables below:
| Merrill Lynch Wealth Management Program Fee Schedules | |
|---|---|
| Program name | Annual fee |
| Merrill Guided Investing | 0.45% |
| Merrill Guided Investing, with the help of a dedicated advisor | 0.85% |
| Merrill Lynch Wealth Management Fee Schedule for Strategic Portfolio Advisor Service | ||
|---|---|---|
| Dollar value of assets | Maximum annual fee for equity/balanced/convertible/REIT | Maximum annual fee for fixed income |
| Up to $4.99 million | 1.50% | 0.70% |
| $5 million to $9.99 million | 1.00% | 0.60% |
| $10 million to $14.99 million | 0.85% | 0.50% |
| $15 million to $19.99 million | 0.75% | 0.45% |
| $20 million to $24.99 million | 0.70% | 0.40% |
| $25 million to $49.99 million | 0.60% | 0.40% |
| $50 million or greater | Determined by mutual Agreement | Determined by mutual agreement |
| Merrill Lynch Wealth Management Fee Schedule for Managed Account Service | ||
|---|---|---|
| Dollar value of assets | Maximum annual fee for equity/balanced/convertible/REIT | Maximum annual fee for fixed income |
| Up to $1 million | 1.80% | 0.65% |
| $1 million to $1.99 million | 1.35% | 0.65% |
| $2 million to $4.99 million | 1.35% | 0.50% |
| $5 million to $9.99 million | 1.00% | 0.45% |
| $10 million or greater | Determined by mutual agreement | Determined by mutual agreement |
The fee typically serves as a wrap fee, meaning it covers the advisory, brokerage and custody costs. When advisors use other brokerage firms to place transactions, the client may pay a transaction charge. Clients also are responsible for internal fund fees.
Fees are generally paid in advance, either quarterly or monthly.
Merrill Lynch, Smith, Fenner and Pierce, the registered name of the advisory and broker business, discloses hundreds of pages of findings against it, its predecessor firms and select affiliated individuals. The SEC requires all registered investment advisors to disclose in their Form ADV paperwork any legal or disciplinary actions taken against the firm, its employees or its affiliates over the last 10 years that would be material in evaluating the firm or its management team. It should be noted that large firms such as this one often have disciplinary disclosures.
The firm, which self-reported some of these issues, settled with the SEC, FINRA and state regulators in many cases without admitting or denying the allegations. The settlement accusations include:
For more information on the firm and its disciplinary history, visit Merrill Lynch Wealth Management’s IAPD page.
Merrill Lynch has nearly 3,000 offices across the U.S. You can go to the advisor locator on their website to find out if there is an office located near you.
The state has jurisdiction in all 50 states with the exception of Arizona, Massachusetts and Oregon. Additionally, it is registered to serve investors in the District of Columbia and the Virgin Islands.
The Merrill brand has a vast network of thousands of advisors. Thus, clients starting a search for a local advisor may find one of the team’s 27,000-plus advisors in their area.
As for the firm’s specific offerings, clients will find a broad menu of program offerings that allow clients flexibility in how they want to interact with their advisor. For example, clients can choose to hand over control of their account to their advisor, or they can opt to retain the day-to-day decision making. They can stick with a limited number of strategies managed by Merrill professionals, or branch out into other individual stocks and bonds, third-party portfolio managers and even alternative investments.
Potential clients should make a point to discuss fees with their advisor, since they are often negotiable and can vary for similar services from advisor to advisor. Also, clients should be sure to ask how the advisor earns money for the products they recommend, since they may earn compensation for selling certain investments and thus have a potential conflict of interest. Additionally, not every advisor offers each service or investment, making it important for potential clients to find out upfront what an advisor does and does not offer.
Before you make your decision, be sure to research multiple firms to ensure you find the right advisor for you.
Amanda GenglerAmanda Gengler has been researching and writing about finance for more than 15 years. She honed her personal finance writing as a journalist at Money magazine for a decade.
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