(May 29) – Merrill Lynch & Co. has tapped another non-broker — chief marketing executive James Gorman — to help run the Wall Street firm’s bellwether brokerage operations, the country’s largest,” writes Gaston Ceron in today’s Wall Street Journal.
“Mr. Gorman’s appointment was announced Friday in a memo to employees by E. Stanley O’Neal, who was drafted from his job as chief financial officer three months ago to succeed John L. Steffens as head of the unit.
“The appointment is part of a major shakeup in the division, home to Merrill’s army of more than 14,000 stockbrokers, that is the first significant move by Mr. O’Neal since he took over the unit and the second-most important job at the nation’s largest securities firm.
“Mr. O’Neal, 48, the first non-broker to run Merrill’s brokerage business, is widely expected to succeed Chairman and Chief Executive David Komansky when he retires in 2004. He also would be the first African-American chief executive at a major securities firm.
“Mr. O’Neal, an investment banker by training and a highly regarded executive at Merrill, had been mum about his plans, but the Wall Street community and workers at the firm were watching to see how he would shakeup the brokerage unit, which is formally known as the U.S. private client group.
“In the internal memo sent to Merrill employees, Mr. O’Neal said that all of the unit’s customer-focused businesses, such as those that deal with individual investors and pension plans, will be combined into a client relationship group, to be run by Mr. Gorman.
“The client relationship group, in turn, will be organized into three sub-units: advisory (formerly known as national sales), which encompasses Merrill’s stockbrokers and the firm’s branch offices; direct, which includes Merrill’s discounted Internet investing product, ML Direct; and wealth management services, which are aimed at affluent clients.