There's no place like home for giving your business a boost, which may explain why Merrill Lynch chose to change the name of its Merrill Lynch Investment Managers to Princeton Portfolio Research & Management, after the longtime location of its headquarters. The altered appellation is part of the giant money manager's strategy to get even bigger by making its offerings more appealing to third-party financial advisers who felt the Merrill brand competed against them and would this avoid selling them.
"The Merrill Lynch name has...inhibited broader acceptance of our retail products," says Robert Doll, president and chief investment officer. "This new brand is the linchpin of our effort to make our industry-leading products and services available to an even broader range of advisers and investors." According to ML, about 95% of the nearly 300,000 registered advisers in the U.S. are of the non-Merrill Lynch variety.