Merrill Lynch Announces $6 Billion Share Repurchase Authorization

Merrill Lynch Announces $6 Billion Share Repurchase Authorization

Merrill Lynch & Co., Inc. (NYSE: MER) today announced that its board of directors has authorized the repurchase of up to $6 billion of the company’s outstanding common shares.

“This authorization will enable us to continue to be active and flexible in managing our equity capital,” noted Jeff Edwards, chief financial officer. “We seek to balance increasing our return on equity and growing our book value per share. To achieve this goal, our primary focus is to deploy capital into profitable growth opportunities. But to the extent we generate excess capital, we will continue to use share repurchases, as well as cash dividends, to return capital to stockholders.”

The authorization will be exercised from time to time, subject to market conditions, the relative attractiveness of other capital deployment opportunities, and regulatory considerations. Any repurchases are intended to make appropriate adjustments to the company’s capital structure.

Merrill Lynch is one of the world’s leading wealth management, capital markets and advisory companies with offices in 37 countries and territories and total client assets of approximately $1.6 trillion. As an investment bank, it is a leading global trader and underwriter of securities and derivatives across a broad range of asset classes and serves as a strategic advisor to corporations, governments, institutions and individuals worldwide. Merrill Lynch owns approximately half of BlackRock, one of the world’s largest publicly traded investment management companies with more than $1 trillion in assets under management. For more information on Merrill Lynch, please visit www.ml.com.

This press release may contain forward-looking statements, including, for example, statements about management expectations, strategic objectives, growth opportunities, business prospects, and other similar matters. These forward-looking statements are not statements of historical facts and represent only Merrill Lynch’s beliefs regarding future performance, which is inherently uncertain. There are a variety of factors, many of which are beyond Merrill Lynch’s control, which affect the operations, performance, business strategy and results and could cause its actual results and experience to differ materially from the expectations and objectives expressed in any forward-looking statements. These factors include, but are not limited to, financial market volatility; actions and initiatives taken by current and potential competitors; general economic conditions; the effect of current, pending and future legislation, regulation, and regulatory actions; and the other additional factors described in Merrill Lynch’s Annual Report on Form 10-K and in its subsequent reports on Form 10-Q and Form 8-K, which are available on the Merrill Lynch Investor Relations website at www.ir.ml.com and at the SEC’s website, www.sec.gov.

Accordingly, readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on forward-looking statements, which speak only as of the date on which they are made. Merrill Lynch does not undertake to update forward-looking statements to reflect the impact of circumstances or events that arise after the date the forward-looking statements are made. The reader should, however, consult any further disclosures Merrill Lynch may make in its future filings of its reports on Form 10-K, Form 10-Q and Form 8-K.
Contacts

Merrill Lynch & Co., Inc.
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or
Investor Relations:
Jonathan Blum, 866-607-1234
Investor_Relations {at} ml(.)com