Prospering Upstart

Like a diamond in a coal bin this week glittered the annual report of Merrill Lynch, Pierce, Fenner & Beane, biggest of all Wall Street brokers (TIME, Aug. 4). Although the security business is awful, Merrill Lynch, which lost $308,000 in the last nine months of 1940, earned a smacking $459,258 in 1941.

This profit, moreover, was figured after paying some $650,000 total salaries for 63 partners, $200,000 taxes, earmarking $323,892 interest on capital invested.

No nurser of secrets, Merrill Lynch used most of a handsome 20-page report to tell Wall Street about its success. Its 29,886 new customers last year pushed M.L.'s total to 70,000 active accounts whose buying & selling amounted to 8% of all New York Stock & Curb Exchange transactions. M.L.'s commission: around $3,500,000. Another $4,000,000 came from commodity and underwriting business. The rest of M.L.'s $8,657,000 gross was interest income.

Old Guard brokers still think of Merrill Lynch as a lucky upstart, resent its flashy merchandising methods, stick to their traditions of not publishing any annual reports at all. But none of them sneered at M.L.'s profit figures.

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