Richard McCabe to Retire From Merrill Lynch; Mary Ann Bartels Named Chief Market Analyst

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NEW YORK, December 20, 2005 — Merrill Lynch (NYSE:MER) today announced that Richard McCabe, chief U.S. market analyst and head of U.S. Technical & Market Analysis, has decided to retire after more than four decades with the firm.

Richard McCabe

Merrill Lynch also announced that Mary Ann Bartels, in addition to her role as director of Global Equity Trading Research Strategy, will succeed Mr. McCabe as chief U.S. market analyst and head of U.S. Technical & Market Analysis.

Mr. McCabe, 66, has served as the chief market analyst at Merrill Lynch since 1993 and has been a member of the Global Securities Research and Economics group since 1962. He has been recognized in the Institutional Investor All-America Research team survey since 1994 for his technical analysis. In the 2005 Institutional Investor research survey, Mr. McCabe was lauded for his "skill at calling market turning points and putting things in long- and short-term perspective."

"We would like to thank Dick for his 43 years of service," said SVP Candace Browning, head of Global Securities Research and Economics. "His integrity, leadership and enthusiasm truly represent the best of Merrill Lynch."

"We are very pleased to promote Mary Ann into this senior role," added Ms. Browning. "With over twenty years of investment knowledge and more than eight years of experience working with Merrill Lynch clients, this will be a seamless transition."

Ms. Bartels, 43, rejoined Merrill Lynch in 1999 working with the European Quantitative Strategy Team and assumed her current responsibilities in 2001. Ms. Bartels is well known by Merrill Lynch's clients and business partners for developing various proprietary new models for equity pairs trading and for sector, industry and stock selection.

In her prior role at Merrill Lynch, April 1992 to October 1994, Ms. Bartels was responsible for co-developing the investment strategy for the Merrill Lynch European Quantitative Strategy department. She also created models for predicting the Growth vs. Value cycles for the Pan European and Japanese markets and developed a Currency Capital Flow Model to predict currency movements post the euro launch.

Mary Ann Bartels

Prior to rejoining Merrill Lynch, Ms. Bartels was an international portfolio manager at Batterymarch in Boston, where she chaired the International Asset Allocation Committee and was the manager of the Currency Hedging Program. She was also a global portfolio manager at Avatar/Zweig Associates in New York, where she was responsible for the firm's global investments including equity, fixed income and currency. While at Avatar, Ms. Bartels co-developed their Global Tactical Asset Allocation Model implementing various economic, liquidity, sentiment and technical models.

Ms. Bartels earned both her Bachelor of Science and Master of Arts degrees in economics at Fordham University in New York.

Merrill Lynch is one of the world's leading wealth management, capital markets and advisory companies, with offices in 36 countries and territories and total client assets of approximately $1.7 trillion. As an investment bank, it is a leading global trader and underwriter of securities and derivatives across a broad range of asset classes and serves as a strategic advisor to corporations, governments, institutions and individuals worldwide. Through Merrill Lynch Investment Managers, the company is one of the world's largest managers of financial assets. Firmwide, assets under management total $524 billion. For more information on Merrill Lynch, please visit www.ml.com.

contacts

Contact Research Communications:
Susan McCabe Walley 212.449.0389
susan_mccabe@ml.com