The US bank reported a generally positive set of figures for its wealth and private client businesses.

Bank of America said last week that it logged net income of $2.8 billion in its global wealth and investment management division in 2016, an 8 per cent increase from 2015.

For the fourth quarter, GWIM reported net income of $634 million, up 1.8 per cent year-on-year, it said. Revenue of $4.4 billion for the quarter fell 2.3 per cent from the same period a year ago because higher asset management fees were more than offset by lower transactional revenue.

There was a pre-tax margin in GWIM of 23 per cent, a slight gain over 12 months. Asset management fees came in at $2.098 billion, up 1 per cent from the third quarter of 2016 and 2 per cent up on the year. 

Brokerage and other non-interest income fell $142 million from a year ago, as transactional revenues took a drop. Client balances of more than $2.5 trillion rose 2 per cent compared to year-end 2015. Total GWIM assets under management stood at $886 billion at the end of 2016, versus $871 billion at the end of September 2016.

Merrill Lynch Wealth Management
Client balances at this segment stood at $2.1 trillion, a gain of 1 per cent from the third quarter of 2016 and up 6 per cent over the year. Revenue, at $3.6 billion, was flat between quarters and fell 2.5 per cent on the year as transaction volume declined, the firm said.

Merrill Lynch achieved positive year-on-year advisor growth of 129 persons (or 1 per cent) since Q4 2015, and quarter-on-quarter growth of 76 (or 0.5 per cent) for a total of 14,629 advisors.

US Trust
At US Trust, revenue in the fourth quarter of 2016 was $776 million, up 2.1 per cent from the previous three-month period.

In total, private client advisors at US Trust reached a record of 352.