Bank of America is dropping the storied Merrill Lynch name from some of its businesses, and it signals the end of an era

REUTERS/Robert Galbraith

• Bank of America is discarding the name Merrill Lynch from some of its businesses, including the investment bank and trading units, according to a new report. 
• The rebranding comes nearly a decade after the bank’s acquisition of Merrill Lynch at the height of the 2008 financial crisis.

Bank of America is retiring two much-respected names in banking, The Wall Street Journal reported on Monday.

The bank is expected to announce on Monday that it will drop off the name Merrill Lynch from some of its businesses, including the investment bank and trading operations, the report said. Those businesses, together with the bank’s units serving the corporate clients, were known as "Bank of America Merrill Lynch." They will now be called BofA Securities, while the subsidiaries dealing with the corporate clients will be called Bank of America. The bank will retain "Merrill" as the brand for its wealth management business. 

The Charlotte-based financial conglomerate bought Merill Lynch, once the world’s largest retail brokerage, at the height of the 2008 financial crisis. Unlike other firms like Bear Stearns and Smith Barney whose names disappeared in the aftermath of the crisis, Merrill kept its name for over a decade. But the new rebranding signals the end of that era.

U.S. Trust, a business which Bank of America purchased from Charles Schwab & Co. in 2007 for $3.3 billion, will be rebranded as the Bank of America Private Bank. U.S. Trust, founded over a century ago in New York, is one of the oldest and largest trust services provider in the nation.

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Source: Business Insider – mshi@businessinsider.com (Madeline Shi)