B of A Merrill Lynch Renames Institutional Business, Hires New Team

As Bank of America Merrill Lynch moves to strengthen its overall focus on institutional clients, it has renamed its institutional consulting group and hired an advisor team working with more than $2.7 billion of client assets.

The new direction for the institutional business, now named global institutional consulting, was announced in an internal memo sent to employees by Thomas McAuliffe, managing director and head of global institutional consulting, on Monday.

The news comes on the heels of multiple changes to Bank of America Merrill Lynch's leadership and strategy in recent months, most recently with the creation of a global wealth and retirement solutions organization announced by Andrew Sieg, who heads that unit, on Sept. 23.

"We're clearly looking to grow our advisor focus with institutional clients across the board," McAuliffe said in an interview on Monday, citing the changes previously announced by Sieg.

McAuliffe joined Bank of America Merrill Lynch in April after Sieg wooed him to the firm from Morgan Stanley Smith Barney, where he was a director of the firm's investment consulting group, Graystone Consulting. Before that, McAuliffe served as director of institutional consulting at UBS.

The name change to global institutional consulting better reflects the global institutional products and services clients now expect, McAuliffe said, including international research and resources.

Global institutional consulting has also hired a new advisor team from Convergent Wealth Advisors as it looks to expand its advisory force. The team is led by George Dunn, who was responsible for helping Convergent build its practice for institutional clients.

For reprint and licensing requests for this article, click here.
MORE FROM AMERICAN BANKER