Earlier today, CNBC's Charlie Gasparino discussed the continued woes surrounding Bank of America (BAC) chief Ken Lewis. In his latest hit, Gasparino discussed how even though Lewis referred to Merrill's army of brokers as the 'crown jewel' of the company, assets under management (AUM) within Merrill have been shrinking 'rapidly'. With the S&P 500 declining by 38% in 2008, one would expect to see significant declines in the amount of AUM, but Gasparino discounted these declines and cited fleeing assets, or outflows, as the main cause.
After gathering the numbers for the various banks/brokers, we found that every firm we looked at saw AUM declines during 2008. However, the 29% decline in AUM at Merrill was second only to Citibank, which saw a 34.5% decline over the same period. So, while it wasn't a good year for any of these firms in terms of increasing assets, Merrill and Citibank saw the brunt of the declines. Morgan Stanley and JP Morgan saw assets decline by 5% or less, so if you factor out the market's 38% decline, when all was said and done, these firms most likely saw asset inflows for the year.
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