This is one of the world's leading financial management companies. As an investment bank, it is the top global underwriter and market maker of debt and equity securities, and it is a leading advisor to corporations, governments, institutions and individuals worldwide. Merrill Lynch also serves households, small to mid-sized businesses and regional institutions using a planning-based financial services approach. The Merrill Lynch & Co. name was adopted on October 15, 1915 as a successor to the firm started by Charles E. Merrill in 1914. Edmund Lynch joined later that year. Messrs. Merrill and Lynch felt there were many potential investors outside the social and economic elite catered to by the old-line Wall Street houses. Charles Merrill had an ambition to bring "Wall Street to Main Street" and built his business on strong values, solid ethics and the idea, which was new to the financial industry at the time, of addressing the concerns of the individual client. The firm has benefited from a course of steady progress toward achieving its preeminence based on this simple philosophy. In the early years, Merrill Lynch pioneered in raising capital for the emerging chain store industry. It broke ground in 1919 with the hiring of Wall Street's first bond saleswoman, Annie Grimes, and also by opening its uptown New York office every weekday evening from 7 p.m. to 9 p.m. beginning in 1924 in order to cater to the "average investor" who had to work during normal business hours. In 1930, Merrill Lynch transferred most of its business to E. A. Pierce & Co., founded in 1885 and by then, the nation's largest wire house. During the 19920s, Pierce had established branches across the country, connected by a network of private wires to transmit orders and quotations. In 1940, Merrill Lynch combined with Pierce to create a new style brokerage company that could reach more investors than ever. In 1941, Merrill Lynch was the first Wall Street firm to issue an annual report showing its operating results for the year. Also in that year the company merged with Fenner & Beane, resulting in offices in 92 cities around the United States. When the Ford Motor Company made its initial public offering in 1956, it selected Merrill Lynch as one of seven co-managers to bring the car manufacturer public. The offering gave Merrill Lynch its first billion-dollar underwriting year. By 1971, Merrill Lynch was ready to sell its shares to the public for the first time. It was the second New York Stock Exchange member company to go public. Merrill Lynch broke ground in the financial services industry again with the creation in 1977 of the Cash Management Account (CMAŽ), the first combined money market, brokerage and credit card account. This has proven to be an outstanding financial innovation and today is widely imitated by other institutions. The firm has always been an industry leader in using technology, as evidenced in 1955 when it became one of the first American businesses to computerize its operations with the purchase of three IBM 650s. It was also the first Wall Street firm to install the more powerful second generation transistorized IBM 7080. During the late 1960s, the surge in trading volume on the New York Stock Exchange caught many companies unprepared for the commensurate paperwork. Across Wall Street, firms had difficulty keeping up with the mass of stock certificates and orders to process. Trade confirmations and securities certificates were lost, and by the second half of 1970 many major firms were on the verge of collapse or had already gone under. In October 1970, the fifth largest member firm, Goodbody & Co., was close to failing as a result of the "Paperwork Crisis." Had it done so, the Exchange would have had a serious panic. Merrill Lynch stepped in to absorb the floundering Goodbody & Co. Merrill Lynch was the only firm capable of handling such an acquisition. It had already built a solid technological foundation and was thus able to rise to the occasion. Again, the firm played a leading role in restoring peace to Wall Street by calming investors in 1987, when an historic market drop of 508 points occurred on October 19th. Merrill Lynch worked around the clock, helping to ease investors' fears with reasoned advice and information. Merrill has had long-standing interests in the Far East. It established its regional headquarters in Hong Kong in 1982. In 1984, Merrill Lynch was among the first foreign securities firms permitted to underwrite Japanese Government bonds and, in 1983, to become a regular member of the Tokyo Stock Exchange. It now has thirty-three offices throughout Japan. In 1993, Merrill Lynch was invited to become the first U. S. securities company to do business in China. Through its planned growth and a series of strategic acquisitions, the firm has evolved from a national wire house to a dual franchise serving individual investors and the capital markets, and ultimately to a global financial services company. One benchmark addition to Merrill Lynch was the l978 purchase of White, Weld & Co., an old-line company with innovative financing techniques, an international presence and a strong history of successful initial public offerings. More recently, its global expansion has included the 1995 acquisition of Smith New Court plc, positioning Merrill Lynch as the most powerful equity organization in the world with excellence in research, trading and sales. The following year, it purchased McIntosh Securities Ltd., one of Australia's leading brokerage firms. In 1997, it added the well-known Mercury Asset Management Group, allowing Merrill Lynch to take a dramatic leap into the fast-growing asset management business. Further acquisitions have included one of the largest securities firms in South Africa, Smith Borkum Hare. Merrill's Trading Floors Merrill Lynch has three trading floors at the World Financial Center, each two stories in height, for an aggregate of approximately 80,000 square feet of floor space, one of the largest trading areas in the world. By mid-98, client assets at Merrill Lynch exceeded $1.4 trillion, a remarkable figure attesting to the relationships with its clients. The foundation of these achievements is expressed through Merrill Lynch's five Principles: Client Focus, Respect for the Individual, Teamwork, Responsible Citizenship and Integrity. These Principles, which are based on Charles Merrill's "Ten Commandments" published in 1941, are an unchanging philosophy by which the company does business. The Merrill Lynch Principles are the standards by which all decisions are made, and they are the means by which the firm has achieved global success.