Merrill Lynch plans to expand its commodities business in Asia and hopes eventually also to build on its presence in such European markets as France and Germany, Stan O'Neal, Merrill's chief executive officer, said on June 01. "What we hope to do with that commodities business unit is expand greatly our presence outside of the US, particularly in Asia, where this operation had no presence. But we do have a large investment banking and trading presence there," O'Neal told Reuters.
"We'd like to build out the platform they have to include other commodities such as coal and petroleum products which have much more application in the Asia Pacific region," O'Neal said, as he launched a children's financial education program called WorldwideKids in co-operation with Sesame Workshop, a non-profit educational organisation.
O'Neal said his firm plans to grow organically in addition to making acquisitions. "We will also look at further acquisitions to the extent they are complementary to our organic plans in various parts of the world," he said.
The brokerage's chief executive added: "If you look at Europe, countries like Germany and France, obviously are large economies, the UK as well, and we would like to find ways of being larger in those markets over time."
In September, Merrill Lynch & Co announced plans to buy the energy-trading business of Entergy-Koch LP - continuing a trend on Wall Street that has investment banks expanding into commodities markets amid surging energy prices.
Energy-Koch, a joint venture of power company Entergy Corp and closely held Koch Industries Inc, is among the biggest US commodities firms.
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