Merrill Lynch office. (Photo: AP)
To bring on next-generation advisors, Bank of America Merrill Lynch has raised the yearly starting pay of trainees by $10,000 a year. It's also boosting its hiring of trainees.
This quarter, the wirehouse is bringing on 100 more trainees than it did in the year-ago period. The figure of its trainees so far in 2019 stands at 1,700.
"Merrill sees a team environment with experienced advisors as part of setting them up for success," according to a statement.
The moves come as the number of traditional advisors at Merrill is shrinking: It stood at 14,690 as of June 30, down 130 from a year ago and 71 from the prior quarter. (Merrill will update this figure on Oct. 16, when it reports its third-quarter earnings.)
Recently, four advisors with over $950 million in assets and about $5.5 million in yearly fees and commissions left Merrill Lynch to join Stifel Financial — including Richard Murphy Jr., and Kevyn F. Schroeder, both of whom had been with the Thundering Herd for the past 31 years. That followed the departure of a four-advisor team with $675 million to Ameriprise Financial.
