US investment bank Merrill Lynch yesterday opened a new larger office in Moscow to tap into Russia's fast growing capital markets. Merrill Lynch's new chairman and chief executive said emerging BRIC (Brazil, Russia, India and China) markets would be a priority for the bank in 2008 as the slowdown in the US accelerated. In his first foreign trip since taking over two months ago, Mr Thain said: "Russia is very important for us and has the ability to create a lot of growth." He said Merrill Lynch advised Russian companies in M&A deals worth $64.3 billion in 2007, which was enough to top data provider Dealogic's league tables. Mr Thain said increasing staff numbers in rapidly developing markets, as well as the continuing growth of Merrill's wealth management operations, are offsetting subprime-related job cuts in operations like fixed income. Merrill last week reported $16 billion in the kind of subprime-related write-downs that have led to job cuts elsewhere. Merrill Lynch last year hired Bernie Sucher from Russian bank Alfa Capital as a managing director and head of Global Markets for Russia. Mr Sucher has been charged with building out the firm's local fixed income, currencies and commodities as well as equity sales and trading operations.