Merrill slides to £882m loss
12 April 2012
AMERICAN investment bank Merrill Lynch slumped to a fourth-quarter loss of $1.26bn (£881.6m), its first quarterly deficit for five years, as it struggled to adapt to quieter financial markets.
The loss, which compares with an $877m profit a year earlier, came after a $1.7bn charge for 9,000 redundancies and branch closures.
Merrill reported declining debt trading revenues, reduced investment banking fees and write-downs on its private equity portfolio.
