Up to 600 branches could close in Bank of America's split into two separate consumer and commercial units, according to CNN.
But that's not the only change apparent at the bank. The restructuring could also cut 30,000 jobs, 10.5% of the bank's employees.
Reports of possible closings and layoffs come on the tail of a major management shakeup that was necessary in order to divide Merrill in half.
Merrill's wealth management division (brokers) will now be part of Bank of America's gigantic consumer division and report to David Darnell. Merrill's institutional investment banking and trading division will now report to Tom Montag. This seems tantamount to cutting the firm in half.
The re-org also saw the departure of Sallie Krawcheck and Joe Price, two top officials and the creation of two COO positions where there was none.
The two new COO's will be Tom Montag and David Darnell.
David Darnell will be overseeing the bank's retail brokerage and consumer units. He started as a credit analyst for the company in 1979. Since then, he's served as executive VP and Commercial Division executive for the bank in Florida, headed consumer and commercial operations in the central U.S., led the bank's Middle Market Banking Group (for four years), and headed a team that took care of all bank services in one in three mid-sized business across the country.
According to Forbes, it's Merrill's old brokers who could be feeling the most sore about Darnell's appointment. Sallie Krawcheck was their advocate at the top, and now they're afraid Darnell will continue to try to change their culture or compensation. To the former he has said little to assuage their fears. To the latter, according to the NYPost, he has already made moves to ensure bankers that their compensation structure would remain untouched.
Tom Montag is responsible for all of the businesses that serve companies and institutional investors. Before that, he was president of Global Banking and Markets at Bank of America Merrill Lynch. He joined Merrill in 2008, before its merger with Bank of America.
And before that he was at Goldman Sachs for 22 years, where he held a number of executive positions, including co-head of Asian FICC and Equities and the bank's global securities business. All of that boils down to one e-mail, though -- an e-mail read during a Senate committee hearing where he discussed "one shitty deal" the bank made on CDO Timberwolf.
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