According to the Wall Street Journal Merrill Lynch & Co. promoted and targeted high net worth investors across the country to market and sell the lowest ranked collateral-debt obligations and became the “King” of such sales over the last decade. “Merrill is vulnerable to investor ire because it sold the biggest inventory of CDOs and had the industry’s biggest brokerage force to sell them in the years leading up to the financial crisis. It was common practice for Merrill to pitch retail clients the lowest-rated CDO slices—a permissible transaction under SEC rules—while it sold the higher-rated tranches to larger institutions, according to people familiar with the matter”
as reported by the Wall Street Journal’ Dan Fitzpatrick on 6/11/2010.
According to published reports Merrill Lynch advisors were promoting the CDO investments as very safe and little risk to individual investors, when the complete opposite was the truth. The fact that a client’s net worth is high does not translate into sophistication in knowing all things about all investments. Unfortunately, it appears Merrill Lynch downplayed the risks and improperly sold sophisticated CDO investments to unsuspecting individual investors.
The Meissner firm has successfully pursued numerous arbitration claims against Merrill Lynch & Co. over the years, with unmatched win statistics at hearings. The history of having been a prosecutor and securities regulator provides the experience necessary to successfully take on Merrill Lynch and other brokerage firms. If you lost more than $100,000.00 on CDO sales through Merrill Lynch & Co.