There is a murmuring in the London market that Merrill is a mess. Or rather that Bank of America Merrill Lynch is a mess. That sentiment was exacerbated in March when two senior European FIG bankers, Amir Hoveyda and Sid Prasad, resigned. Hoveyda lost out to Alastair Borthwick and Lisa Carnoy to run global capital markets after the previous head, Bruce Thompson, was promoted to be chief risk officer. Some say that Borthwick wants to focus the firm’s energies more on corporate and frequent borrower business. Paul Richards, who once ran the global debt syndicate function, will succeed Hoveyda as head of debt capital markets, EMEA, while retaining his current role as head of international debt syndicate. Marc Tempelman steps up to be head of FIG DCM in Europe. This is also a sign that we are in a different era: in the heady days of 2006 and 2007, Merrill was renowned for its financial institution franchise. Bankers such as Greg Fleming, Andrea Orcel, Matthew Greenburgh and Amir Hoveyda were revered as the new masters of the universe. Remember it was Merrill that advised the RBS consortium on its bid in 2007 for ABN Amro. Now it looks as if the carnival has moved on.

Lyndsay Glynn has left her role as vice-president in institutional sales at Bank of America Merrill Lynch in London. Glynn is on gardening leave until July; sources say this is another hire by Citi’s real money investor FX sales team. Before joining what was then Merrill, Glynn was in real money fund sales at Dresdner Kleinwort Wasserstein.

Steve Pearson has resigned from Bank of America Merrill Lynch where he was head of G10 currency strategy. Sources say he will be joining hedge fund Element Capital Management in New York to set up its macro-economic and strategy research function.

Revenue from Montag's inherited empire, BofA's global banking and markets, is mixed but Mongag looks lucky.

Cuomo's allegations surrounding Bank of America's former and current heads are perplexing.

Journalists and clients are breathing a sigh of relief that Bank of America Merrill Lynch has changed its email format to the much simpler baml.com from bofasecurities.com. Everyone agrees the full name of the firm is still too long, though. Whether or not the world will be forced to call the merged entity its two names for ever is uncertain, but Jeffry Pilcher, a financial naming consultant, says it could be worse. "It’s harder to say the two names than it is to write them, but that happens a lot with merged companies that want to retain the two brands. JPMorgan Chase is a pretty bad mash-up too."

While the old adage that you don’t change a winning team is not strictly true, it does suggest that Bank of America Merrill Lynch must have some serious fault lines in its FX business. As 2010 starts, the bank has had yet another change in its senior management (see People moves). Over the years, the once separate banks have employed some highly regarded players to try and crack into the upper echelons of FX.

As a new year starts, Bank of America Merrill Lynch has carried out its traditional change to the management of its foreign exchange business.

Bank of America Merrill Lynch is believed to have hired Liam Hudson from Barclays NY, where he was a director of FX algorithmic execution. Rumour has it that he will be the bank’s new global head of FX e-trading.

Focus returns to core investment banking; Bajpai claims synergies from merger

The US bank’s succession planning is turning into a bad joke. But it still has time to get the punchline right by looking outside for its next leader.

Bank of America Merrill Lynch is believed to have hired Liam Hudson from Barclays NY, where he was a director of FX algorithmic execution. Rumour has it that he will be global head of FX e-trading, although there is no official comment from the bank.

The last thing chairman Walter Massey and his board need as a successor to outgoing Ken Lewis is another pugnacious Bank of America lifer who rubs politicians the wrong way.

Krawcheck faces tough task at BofA Merrill Lynch; Merrill wealth staffers unwelcoming of outsiders

"How the hell do you think I’m doing after losing $1 billion?"

Although the bank is not commenting, it appears that Bank of America Merrill Lynch is making more changes to its FX business. The latest gossip is that it has hired Tom Gillie from Credit Suisse in Singapore, where he was head of FX options trading and structuring, Asia, for a senior role in options. The bank is also thought to have hired Chris Bae from Goldman Sachs in Asia, where he traded equity derivatives, for a role in FX.

BofA president bullish on prospects; Firm maintains top three revenue slot

Bank of America/Merrill Lynch has published an FX specific companion piece to its Merrill Lynch fund manager survey.

Global reach and capital remain king.

One thing Jim Quigley is not short of is confidence. The president of Latin America at Bank of America Merrill Lynch believes that the newly merged firm is well placed to win business as capital markets and investment banking activity begin to pick up.

Last month executives of the world’s largest banks, alarmed at collapsing share prices, told everyone what a profitable start to 2009 they had enjoyed. By the end of the month, shares were rallying. Let’s hope that actual first-quarter 2009 earnings announcements don’t pour cold water on their hopes. Peter Lee reports.

Shortly after the Wall Street Journal disclosed which Merrill executives had been awarded bumper payouts, Gu was served with a subpoena from New York’s attorney general to give a deposition on his remuneration. But as if that was not bad enough, there was talk in the financial markets that one of the traders in Gu’s division had incurred a $500 million loss, which was not immediately apparent.

Following its takeover of Merrill Lynch, some clarification has started to emerge from Bank of America about its management structure. Chris Allington and Chris Vogel are co-heads of G10 currency trading; Peter Antico is head of Americas rates and local-currency trading; Luke Halestrap is head of EMEA rates and local-currency trading; Chris Hodson is head of global rates electronic trading and market making; Mitch Nadel is head of Japan/Australia rates and currency trading; Nicolas Rabeau and Neh Thaker are co-heads of global rates and currencies exotics trading; Jin Su is head of Asia-Pacific rates and currency trading excluding Japan/Australia; and Frank Rawlins and Behnouche Mostachfi are co-heads of global FX options trading.

As the terrible fourth-quarter results were unveiled, Bank of America started briefing against John Thain, Merrill Lynch’s chief executive. This is always a high-risk press strategy. A public relations specialist comments: "Washing dirty laundry in public is dangerous. Now even grannies in Topeka, Kansas, know that Bank of America is in chaos."

A week, they say, is a long time in politics. We now know that a week can be an eternity in the financial markets, especially when it starts with Lehman Brothers going bust and ends with Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley becoming licensed deposit takers so that they can snuggle closer to the Federal Reserve. Oh, and in between, you had the rescue of the largest US insurance company, AIG and the proposed Stalinization of US capitalism financed by the Land of the Free’s taxpayers.

Before the September crisis, many banks were looking to sell non-core assets to raise capital. Now, safety in size means mergers are the order of the day. But when the market settles, will investors demand that banks concentrate on what they are good at to maximise returns?

In the July 2007 edition of Euromoney, Bank of America CEO Ken Lewis gave a rare in-depth interview. Lewis said: "We are not believers in the build it and they will come mantra. We need to look our shareholders in the eye". "In time, we want to be one of the top five investment banks in the world". More than 18 months ago Euromoney said: "Bank of America is at a tipping point. Ken Lewis is about to face his biggest challenge yet." Little did we know how great the challenge would be. Re-read the story here