Seems they want everyone to go to Merrill Edge and have only million dollar producers in the branches.

ML wants to go to the 2-4 person team model in all its offices. The solo advisor doing 250-500k in production will find it harder and harder to do business there.

the PMD program is all but dismantled. It will be up to the teams to find & cultivate & train new people to help them grow. Management has no clue how to train people to build any semblance of a fee based book.

BFA is designed to keep the PMDs with work ethic from getting shown the door at ML so soon. If ML thought they would be strong advisors they’d keep them as advisors.

ML could probably go to 8000 advisors and do 80% of its current revenue. Not a bad model.

Advisors that are producing less than $1mm are starting to feel the squeeze with the $250k household limit and Merrill One. Recruiting is way down because of the above changes. There is also more pressure to do bank products now.
They are definitely putting an emphasis on teaming but that’s not necessarily a bad thing.
PMD program is still a mess. No real plan but if you’re looking for a salary and someplace to start (pad your resume), you could do worse.

How’s life at Merrill? This should sum things up beautifully. Instead of focusing on client needs, and the market, these guys are bitching about their business cards. The relationship between ML brokers and BofA is at its worst…

http://www.investmentnews.com/article/20140617/BLOG03/140619964?utm_source=Daily-20140617&utm_medium=in-newsletter&utm_campaign=investmentnews&utm_term=text#