The equity trading operation of Bank of America Merrill Lynch has new digs.
The merged trading group has left Merrill’s longtime home at the World Financial Center and moved into the recently completed Bank of America Tower at One Bryant Park in New York’s Midtown district.
The 54-story, quartz-like building, situated across from Manhattan’s popular Bryant Park, is the city’s second largest, thanks in part to a 255-foot spire, and bills itself as its "greenest." The building was completed last year after four years of construction. About 500 equity traders, salespeople and support staff moved onto the building’s 5th floor in stages over the past three weekends.
"We’ve been downtown for a long time," Henry Mulholland, head of Americas cash trading and sales trading, tells Traders Magazine. "It’s exciting to be in Midtown, which is closer to more of our clients."
Merrill occupied two towers at the World Financial Center, located in lower Manhattan on the Hudson River, for 23 years. Following the merger between Merrill and Bank of America last year, BofA’s equities trading group moved from its West 57th Street location to Merrill’s headquarters. The combined group is made up mostly of former Merrill employees.
Besides Mulholland’s group, the fifth floor is the base of operations for two other trading divisions focused on the Americas. Those are execution services–mainly electronic trading–which is headed by Michael Lynch, and equity-linked trading, which is headed by Val Mihan. The firm’s equities financing, capital markets and research groups are located on separate floors.
As a byproduct of the move, the equities trading staff will be reunited with their investment banking and fixed income colleagues. The groups had been working in separate buildings after the merger closed.
The revival of investment banking has been a boon for Merrill. The firm was dominant in REIT recapitalizations earlier this year, according to Mulholland, and also benefited from the equity underwritings of large banks.
On the fixed income side, Mulholland points out that communication between the two groups is essential in today’s market as clients are demanding services that span the entire capital structure of the companies the firm covers. "For our equities traders to speak with the credit traders here is vitally important for our clients," Mulholland says.
