Merrill Shuffles Brokerage Managers in Wake of Broader Cost Cuts at BofA
October 01 2015 - 5:00PM
Dow Jones News
Bank of America Corp.'s Merrill Lynch unit is shuffling several
of the top executives who oversee the brokerage's more than 14,000
financial advisers, in the wake of broader cost cuts at the
bank.
Merrill also told its brokers this week that it would
consolidate its so-called Heartland division to reduce the number
of market regions to 10 from 11, according to a memorandum viewed
by The Wall Street Journal and people familiar with the matter.
Merrill's market division heads oversee numerous so-called
complexes, or clusters of branch offices, in groups of states
throughout the U.S.
The Heartland division comprised states including Wyoming,
Colorado, Oklahoma and Arkansas. Those states will be split into
neighboring markets, the memo said.
The division's dissolution is part of Merrill head John Thiel's
effort to "simplify" the firm's management structure, according to
the memo. But it also comes after Bank of America Chief Executive
Brian Moynihan said last month that he would further reduce costs
if results didn't improve.
Earlier this week, Bank of America began laying off roughly 200
employees in its trading and investment-banking units.
Merrill's Heartland region head, Jodi Rolland, will shift into
Bank of America's global commercial bank as its Colorado market
executive, the memo said, as the company further shifts executives
between the bank and wealth management. She is focused on "growth
opportunities" in Colorado, the memo said.
Meanwhile, Jeff Ransdell, Merrill's Southeastern U.S. head, will
retire to "pursue new opportunities," the memo said. Mr. Ransdell
had been with the firm for 20 years, starting as a broker before
eventually managing advisers in Florida, Alabama, South East
Georgia, the Caribbean and Latin America.
In July, Merrill said that it would reconfigure its
international wealth business to create a specialized team of
financial advisers to handle clients in 29 countries, including
those in Latin America. The move in part refocused Merrill's
efforts on those countries since selling its international
wealth-management offices in 2012 to Swiss private-banking
specialist Julius Baer Group AG.
But Merrill also raised account minimums for clients in those
regions to require those investors to have balances above $1
million. It wasn't clear if that strategy change contributed to Mr.
Ransdell's decision to retire as he couldn't be reached for
comment.
Replacing Mr. Ransdell is Don Plaus, who had been overseeing
Merrill's South Atlantic region. And Eric Schimpf, a regional
managing director for Merrill's ultrawealthy client unit, the
Private Banking and Investment Group, and head of global corporate
and advisory services, will take over Mr. Plaus's vacated role. A
replacement for Mr. Schimpf will be named shortly, according to the
memo.
People familiar with the matter said Mr. Schimpf is a close ally
of Mr. Thiel. Mr. Schimpf rejoined Merrill in 2014 after nearly
three years at Macquarie Group. Prior to that, he had worked at
Merrill in various capacities between 1994 and 2007.
Write to Michael Wursthorn at michael.wursthorn@wsj.com
Subscribe to WSJ: http://online.wsj.com?mod=djnwires
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
October 01, 2015 16:45 ET (20:45 GMT)
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