DBRS Discontinues Rating Merrill Lynch & Co., Inc.

DBRS, Inc. (DBRS) has today discontinued the Issuer & Senior Debt, Subordinated Debt and Short-Term Instrument ratings of Merrill Lynch & Co., Inc. (Merrill Lynch).

This rating action follows the Bank of America Corporation’s (Bank of America or the Company) announcement that the merger of Merrill Lynch & Co., Inc. into Bank of America Corporation was completed on October 1, 2013.

In connection with the merger, the Company assumed all of Merrill Lynch’s obligations including its debt and trust preferred securities. The Company indicated that subsidiaries of Merrill Lynch & Co., Inc., a holding company, will continue to operate under the Merrill Lynch name and brand and that the merger will have no impact on customers or clients.

Bank of America Corporation, including its Issuer & Senior Debt rating of “A” Under Review with Negative Implications, is unaffected by today’s action.

Notes:
All figures are in U.S. dollars unless otherwise noted.

The principal applicable methodology is the Global Methodology for Rating Banks and Banking Organizations. Other applicable methodologies include the DBRS Criteria – Intrinsic and Support Assessments and DBRS Criteria: Rating Bank Subordinated Debt & Hybrid Instruments with Discretionary Payments. These can be found at: http://www.dbrs.com/about/methodologies

[Amended on August 28, 2014 to reflect actual methodologies used.]

The sources of information used for this rating include company documents and SNL Financial. DBRS considers the information available to it for the purposes of providing this rating was of satisfactory quality.

This rating is endorsed by DBRS Ratings Limited for use in the European Union.

Lead Analyst: William Schwartz
Rating Committee Chair: Roger Lister
Initial Rating Date: 16 May 2001
Most Recent Rating Update: 04 September 2013

For additional information on this rating, please refer to the linking document under Related Research.