(Bloomberg) -- Sam Chapin and Dan Cummings, senior Merrill Lynch executives who helped meld the firm to Bank of America Corp. after the financial crisis, plan to step down as vice chairmen, ending more than 50 years of combined work at the company.
Chapin joined Merrill in 1983, focused on industrial deals and eventually ran its global investment banking group. “I look forward to starting a new chapter, which I’m hopeful will include a mix of board memberships and non-profit work in education, arts and public policy,” he wrote in an internal memo sent to staff.
Cummings, who ran Bank of America’s equity capital-markets operations globally after the acquisition of Merrill Lynch, and later oversaw the combined firm’s international wealth-management business, also informed the company he intends to leave, according to a separate memo, which didn’t elaborate on his plan.
John Yiannacopoulos, a spokesman for the Charlotte, North Carolina-based bank, confirmed the contents of the memos and declined to comment further. Both executives will leave next month, according to a person with knowledge of their decisions.
The ranks of former top Merrill Lynch executives at Bank of America have thinned after some departed for competitors or were replaced by managers from other Wall Street firms. The tumultuous takeover prodded former Chief Executive Officer Kenneth Lewis into early retirement and ushered Brian Moynihan into the top job. The Merrill Lynch operations have since been overseen by former Goldman Sachs Group Inc. executive Thomas K. Montag.
Herd Leaving
Merrill Lynch veterans Scott Bacigalupo, head of Americas cash equity sales and trading, and Henry Mulholland, equities head for the Americas, left last year. Another equity trading head, Jonah Cave, and a European head of equity strategy, Gary Baker, departed in 2012.
Chapin, 59, helped advise on more than $500 billion of deals during his 33 years working at Bank of America and Merrill Lynch, according to the memo from Montag, investment bank chief Christian Meissner and Purna Saggurti, chairman of global corporate and investment banking. Chapin became executive vice chairman in 2010.
Cummings, 50, joined Merrill Lynch in 1995 and has held the executive vice chairman title since 2013. In recent years, he was responsible for managing the bank’s divestiture of international wealth-management operations to Julius Baer Group Ltd., as well as selling off stakes in BlackRock Inc., China Construction Bank Corp. and Itau Unibanco Holding SA, according to the memo.
To contact the reporters on this story: Laura J. Keller in New York at [email protected] ;Hugh Son in New York at [email protected] To contact the editors responsible for this story: Peter Eichenbaum at [email protected] David Scheer, Steve Dickson
