The heads of global markets and investment banking at Merrill Lynch, Dow Kim and Greg Fleming, have predicted that the firm will earn three quarters of its investment banking revenues from outside the United States within five years.
In an interview with ‘financial news’, Jeff Edwards, the Merrill Lynch CFO, said that there are more opportunities to grow outside the US. “We will look for places where an acquisition can accelerate a growth opportunity, but we will remain disciplined,” he said.
Last year 50 per cent of the revenues of Lehman Brothers and Morgan Stanley were earned outside the US, compared to 37 per cent of those of Merrill Lynch, fuelling concern in the US that the dominant position of Wall Street in global financial markets is waning.