According to a recent interview with the Financial Times, Merrill Lynch, the US's largest stockbroker, is looking to expand its private client business internationally, three years after it withdrew from most of its non-US operations. James Gorman, head of Merrill's private client arm, said the core US business was now running well and the unit was seeking deals to accelerate its growth. "We are looking at a number of transactions in various parts of our business and exploring different forms of partnership around the world," Mr Gorman told the FT. Merrill are in private banking joint venture talks in Japan with local bank MTFG and have recently announced an investment banking joint venture in China, giving it exposure to the fast-emerging HNW market there. Mr Gorman stressed that Merrill’s international efforts would be to focus on high net worth wealth management and would not try to build "the equivalent of middle America stockbroking".