The firm is headquartered in New York City, and once occupied the entire 34 stories of 250 Vesey Street, part of the Brookfield Place complex in Manhattan.

[2] The company also operates Merrill Edge, a division for investment and related services, including call center counsultancy.

Merrill Lynch & Co. agreed to be acquired by Bank of America on September 14, 2008, at the height of the 2007–2008 financial crisis, the same weekend that Lehman Brothers was allowed to fail.

[6] Merrill Lynch rose to prominence on the strength of its network of financial advisors, sometimes referred to as the "thundering herd", that allowed it to place securities it underwrote directly.

[7] In contrast, many established Wall Street firms, such as Morgan Stanley, relied on groups of independent brokers for placement of the securities they underwrote.

Pierce, Edmund Lynch and Winthrop Smith proved to be one of the most innovative in the industry, introducing IBM machines into the business's record keeping.

[18] Following the death of Edmund C. Lynch in 1938, Winthrop Smith began discussions with Charles E. Merrill, who owned a minority interest in E.A.

The combined firm, which became the clear leader in securities brokerage in the U.S., was renamed Merrill Lynch, Pierce, Fenner & Beane.

[21] On December 31, 1957, The New York Times referred to that name as "a sonorous bit of Americana" and said, "After sixteen years of popularizing [it], Merrill Lynch, Pierce, Fenner, and Beane is going to change it—and thereby honor the man who has been largely responsible for making the name of a brokerage house part of an American saga," Winthrop H. Smith, who had been running the company since 1940.

[26][27] In 1978, it significantly buttressed its securities underwriting business by acquiring White Weld & Co., a small but prestigious old-line investment bank.

In a report to the Finance Ministry, the Merrill Lynch group said it had acquired a 7.54% stake in TMS by purchasing 3.33 million shares.

Merrill Lynch purchased the stake purely for investment purposes and had no intention of acquiring control of the firm's management.

[36] In his first days at work in December 2007, Thain made changes in Merrill Lynch's top management, announcing that he would bring in former New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) colleagues such as Nelson Chai as CFO and Margaret D. Tutwiler as head of communications.

[39] In July 2008, Thain announced $4.9 billion fourth-quarter losses for the company from defaults and bad investments in the ongoing mortgage crisis.

[40] Two weeks later, the company announced the sale of select hedge funds and securities in an effort to reduce their exposure to mortgage-related investments.

[42] Then-New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo threatened to sue Merrill Lynch in August 2008 over its misrepresentation of the risk on mortgage-backed securities.

[43] A week earlier, Merrill Lynch had offered to buy back $12 billion in auction-rate debt and said it was surprised by the lawsuit.

[43] Three days later, the company froze hiring and revealed that it had charged almost $30 billion in losses to its subsidiary in the United Kingdom, exempting them from taxes in that country.

[44] On August 22, 2008, CEO John Thain announced an agreement with the Massachusetts Secretary of the Commonwealth to buy back all auction-rate securities from customers with less than $100 million in deposit with the firm, beginning in October 2008 and expanding in January 2009.

[45] On September 5, 2008 Goldman Sachs downgraded Merrill Lynch's stock to "conviction sell" and warned of further losses at the company.

[46] Merrill Lynch, like many other banks, became heavily involved in the mortgage-based collateralized debt obligation (CDO) market in the early 2000s.

[47] To provide a ready supply of mortgages for the CDOs, Merrill purchased First Franklin Financial Corp., one of the largest subprime lenders in the country, in December 2006.

However, in 2010 Justice Bernard Fried disallowed all but one of the charges: the claim by MBIA that Merrill had committed breach of contract by promising the CDOs were worthy of an AAA rating when, it alleges, in reality, they weren't.

Rabobank later claimed that its case against Merrill was very similar to the SEC's fraud charges against Goldman Sachs and its Abacaus CDOs.

[55][56][57][58] Significant losses were attributed to the drop in value of its large and unhedged mortgage portfolio in the form of collateralized debt obligations.

Trading partners' loss of confidence in Merrill Lynch's solvency and ability to refinance money market obligations ultimately led to its sale.

Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) brought suit against Merrill Lynch,[81] alleging the firm discriminated against Dr. Majid Borumand because of his Iranian nationality and Islamic religion, with "reckless disregard" for his protected civil rights.

[86] In August 2013, the company agreed to pay $160 million to settle a class action racism lawsuit brought by a longtime U.S. employee in 2005.

Merrill Lynch failed to reasonably supervise these financial advisers, whose market timing siphoned short-term profits out of mutual funds and harmed long-term investors.

[92][93][94][95] On 19 June 2018, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) charged Merrill Lynch of misleading brokerage customers about trading venues between 2008 and 2013.