Merrill Lynch private-client veteran says good-bye after 22 years. Jerry Miller, COO of Merrill Lynch Investment Managers (MLIM) Global Proprietary business, has resigned his position and will be leaving Merrill Lynch altogether on 1 January 2006, according to a memo e-mailed to MLIM staffers on Tuesday.

The memo, co-signed by MLIM president and CIO Bob Doll and MLIM Americas COO Frank Porcelli, doesn’t give a reason for Miller’s departure or say where he might be headed. MLIM’s public relations staff is mum on those points too.

Until such time

“Over the past 22 years, Jerry’s contributions have had a substantial, positive impact on both the MLIM and Global Private Client (GPC) organizations, and we want to thank him for his many years of service to Merrill Lynch,” says the internal note, which MLIM shared with FWR.

The memo adds that “MLIM’s Global Proprietary leadership team” will be reporting to Porcelli “until such time as a successor [to Miller] is named.”

Miller joined Merrill Lynch in New York as a broker in 1984. Eight years later he went to Boston as district sales manager for northern New England. He was resident v.p. in Baltimore and later in Washington from 1992 to 1998. He then led Merrill’s “flagship” office at the World Financial Center in downtown Manhattan. In 200 he was made a managing director and put in charge of Merrill’s private-client operations in Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, New York and Connecticut – a position that made him responsible for more than 1,000 brokers in about 50 offices. He became COO of MLIM’s Global Proprietary business in 2002.

By “Global Proprietary” MLIM means investment products distributed by Merrill Lynch brokers. Mercury Advisors is MLIM’s non-proprietary asset-management unit.

MLIM had $519 billion in assets under management at the end of September 2005; $231 billion of that was distributed through retail channels, $2 billion were in retail separate accounts and $246 billion were institutional assets. –FWR

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