Merrill in push for overseas business
Merrill Lynch, the US's largest stockbroker, is looking to expand its private client business internationally, three years after it withdrew from most of its non-US operations.
James Gorman, head of Merrill's private client arm, said the core US business was now running well and the unit was seeking deals to accelerate its growth.
“We are looking at a number of transactions in various parts of our business and exploring different forms of partnership around the world,” Mr Gorman said in an interview.
Merrill recently became the latest Wall Street firm to announce an investment banking joint venture in China, which would give it a foothold in the high-end private client market. It is also in talks about a private banking joint venture in Japan with MTFG, the Japanese bank.
Mr Gorman declined to comment on Japan but stressed that any moves Merrill made internationally would be focused on the wealthy end of the market and would not seek to build “the equivalent of middle America stockbroking”.
In the late 1990s, Merrill tried to grow international versions of its US brokerage business in countries such as Japan, Australia, Canada and South Africa. But after years of heavy losses, the operations were sold, closed or dramatically scaled back when Stan O'Neal, Merrill's chief executive, took over in 2001.
The core US business has had a dramatic recovery in profits, which has driven private client earnings up from $600m (�462m) in 2001 to $1.6bn last year.
Mr Gorman said an important factor behind the recovery was the controversial decision to segregate the customer base to give a more limited level of service to less wealthy customers.
Most clients with less than $100,000 in assets were moved to a call centre service. Mr Gorman said this operation was now profitable and he was considering whether to market the service to non-Merrill customers.
Merrill cut back severely after the stock market bubble burst in 2000, but it started hiring financial advisers again in mid-2003 and now has more than 14,000. Global plans signal revival, Page 18
美林拟扩张全球私人客户业务
美国最大的证券经纪商美林(Merrill Lynch)考虑在全球范围内扩大其私人客户业务。三年前该公司从其大多数非美国业务领域中撤出。
美林私人客户分部负责人詹姆斯?戈尔曼(James Gorman)表示，目前核心的美国业务经营良好，该部门在寻求交易，以加速增长。
“我们正考虑业务内各部门的一些交易，并探索在全球进行不同形式的合作，”戈尔曼先生在一次采访中表示。
最近，美林成为最新宣布在中国设立合资投资银行的华尔街机构，该合资企业将给美林在中国高端私人客户市场有立足之地。美林也在进行谈判，拟在日本同日本银行东京三菱金融集团(MTFG)成立私人银行业务合资企业。
戈尔曼先生拒绝就日本发表评论，但他强调，美林在国际上的任何举动，目标都将集中在高端市场，并且将不会寻求建立“中美洲证券经纪业务翻版”。
20世纪90年代末，美林曾试图在日本、澳大利亚、加拿大和南非等国家发展其美国证券经纪业务的国际版本。这些业务遭受了数年的严重亏损，在2001年首席执行官斯坦?奥尼尔(Stan O’Neal)执掌美林时，这些业务被纷纷出售、关闭或大幅缩减规模。
近来，美林核心的美国业务利润大幅回升，推动私人客户收益从2001年的6亿美元(合4.62亿欧元)猛增至去年的16亿美元。
戈尔曼先生说，业绩复苏的一个重要原因在于一项有争议的决策，即分隔客户基础，为那些不太富有的客户提供较有限的服务。
大多数资产不到10万美元的客户都被转移到了一个呼叫中心。戈尔曼先生表示，这项业务目前已实现盈利，他正在考虑是否向非美林客户推销这一服务。
股票市场泡沫在2000年破灭后，美林大幅收缩，但2003年年中它再次开始招募财务顾问，现已有超过1.4万人。
