NEW YORK, March 8 /PRNewswire/ -- Merrill Lynch (NYSE: MER) and the
Massachusetts Institute of Technology today announced a five-year
institutional partnership to collaborate on a unique Financial Technology
Education and Research Initiative. Through this initiative, the Merrill
Lynch/MIT partnership will create rich educational and research opportunities
for future generations of global business leaders and entrepreneurs.
The partnership builds on the work Merrill Lynch has funded at MIT for the
past several years and is the culmination of discussions which began over a
year ago. It establishes a $15 million joint research initiative encompassing
research projects related to a range of important global financial-services
issues, including: the development of "thinking" trading systems, risk
management, financial engineering, electronic commerce, data mining,
development of software approaches to build and integrate complex systems, and
the impact of new communications technologies on interpersonal and
organizational dynamics.
Merrill Lynch will also provide a $5 million grant to help MIT develop and
implement a graduate program in financial technology. In this program, the
Sloan School of Management will create a finance minor for MIT students from
technology fields such as engineering, math, computer science and media
studies. The School of Engineering's Department of Electrical Engineering and
Computer Science will, by developing subjects that incorporate financial
applications, provide the computational and technological foundations of the
financial technology program.
"This collaboration supports Merrill Lynch's commitment to investigating
and implementing new technologies and business methods which will help us
continue to provide our clients with the most intelligent, effective advice
and service globally," said President and Chief Operating Officer Herbert M.
Allison, Jr. "The initiative anticipates and addresses a growing need within
the financial services industry for sophisticated graduates schooled in a
broad, multi-disciplinary curriculum and for focused research on key
financial-services issues. MIT is an ideal partner, bringing a broad range of
disciplines and a multi-dimensional faculty and student body to the
initiative."
MIT President Charles M. Vest said, "The forces now shaping the global
marketplace are as powerful and far-reaching as those that drove the
Industrial Revolution, and their impact on the way we live, work and interact
will be equally profound. The demand for multi-dimensional leaders to solve
the complex problems of this modern world requires a stronger and more
innovative partnership between industry and academia."
Merrill Lynch is one of the world's leading financial management and
advisory companies with offices in 41 countries and total client assets
exceeding $1.4 trillion. As an investment bank, it is the top global
underwriter and market maker of debt and equity securities and a leading
strategic advisor to corporations, governments, institutions, and individuals
worldwide. Through Merrill Lynch Asset Management and Merrill Lynch Mercury
Asset Management the company is one of the world's largest managers of
financial assets with assets under management exceeding $500 billion.
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology is an independent, coeducational
university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts. MIT is one of the leading
research universities in the world. In 1996-97, approximately
2,700 researchers worked with faculty and students on projects funded by
government, foundations and industry. A recent study found that the
4,000 companies founded by MIT graduates and faculty worldwide employ
1.1 million people and have annual world sales of $232 billion. MIT routinely
leads all US universities in patents granted and signs about 70 license
agreements with private companies each year.
SOURCE Merrill Lynch & Co., Inc.
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CONTACT:
Bobbie Collins of Merrill Lynch & Co., Inc.,
212-449-7282, or bcollins@exchange.ml.com
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