By Kenneth Corbin

Merrill Lynch reported solid growth in assets and client balances as it continues to pursue more opportunities for wealthy clients in alternative investments, but it isn't ready to dive into crypto just yet.

On Wednesday, Merrill and its parent company, Bank of America, announced third-quarter results, reporting that client balances at Merrill Wealth Management, including investments, deposits, and loans, reached $3.9 trillion, up 10%. Balances at Bank of America's Private Bank, which serves very wealthy clients, were up 12% year over year, reaching $745 billion.

Merrill saw strong growth in high-net-worth clients, the demographic it sees as best suited to alternative investments. The firm reported that net new relationships with clients with assets of $10 million or more increased 23% year over year.

The Global Wealth and Investment Management unit, which includes Merrill Lynch and the Private Bank, posted a third-quarter profit of nearly $1.3 billion, up 19% from the same period a year ago.

The wealth management results come against a backdrop of a strong quarter for Bank of America, which posted $8.5 billion in profit, up 23% from the same period last year.

The bank said earnings were $1.06 per share, topping analysts' forecast for 95 cents per share, while revenue came in at $28.1 billion, ahead of the $27.5 billion Wall Street was expecting.

Within Merrill and the Private Bank, the number of households that hold alternative investments has more than doubled in the last five years, and the number of advisors recommending those instruments to clients has been increasing steadily.

Merrill has been building out its alts investment platform by expanding its product menu and working to offer wealthy clients greater liquidity in normally illiquid markets. With crypto, however, advisors are more limited. They can field requests from clients to invest in exchange-traded funds with digital assets, but the policy prohibiting advisors from actively recommending those products remains in place, at least for the moment. Asked on a conference call with reporters whether the firm is revisiting that rule, Eric Schimpf, president and co-head of Merrill Wealth Management, acknowledged that it is an active topic of discussion.

"This is a quickly evolving space and a quickly changing landscape," he said. "We're already out there already with the opportunity to have our clients invest in crypto ETFs and those kinds of things, and it's something that we just continue to look at almost daily."

Merrill has been expanding access to other types of alts through its private market opportunities program, which "connects ultrahigh-net-worth clients to private market investment opportunities including capital raises by private companies and co-investments with private-equity sponsors," says Greg McGauley, head of Merrill Private Wealth Management, International & Institutional. "Since launch, the program has seen hundreds of clients enroll, representing some of the firm's largest and most sophisticated ultrahigh-net-worth clients that have the expertise and the experience to evaluate private offering opportunities on their own."

This month, Merrill broadened that program to include private secondary market sales, which enable eligible clients to sell shares in private companies and "unlock liquidity in traditionally illiquid assets," McGauley said.

In September, Merrill and the BofA Private Bank announced the Alts Expanded Access Program, which will present private market opportunities to ultrahigh-net-worth retail clients that have traditionally been only available to institutional investors.

"It will offer eligible clients access to funds that are not broadly distributed, including specialized opportunities in emerging themes, niche strategies, and evolving sectors," said Lindsay Hans, the other president and co-head of Merrill Wealth Management, adding that the first offering on the platform will become available "in the coming weeks."

Write to advisor.editors@barrons.com

This content was created by Barron's, which is operated by Dow Jones & Co. Barron's is published independently from Dow Jones Newswires and The Wall Street Journal.

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

October 15, 2025 13:27 ET (17:27 GMT)

Copyright (c) 2025 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.