Julius Baer said today it is in discussions with BoA Merrill Lynch to buy the firm's non-US wealth arm.

Julius Baer, one of the banks rumoured to be interested in
buying Bank of America Merrill Lynch’s non-US wealth business, said today it
was in talks with the US-listed giant about a possible deal.

Other banks that have been mentioned in media reports as
possible suitors, such as Credit Suisse, UBS, Royal Bank of Canada and Wells
Fargo, have not commented about a deal.

“Julius Baer Group Ltd., the leading Swiss private banking
group, is in discussions with Bank of America Corp about Merrill Lynch’s
international wealth management business (outside the United States),” Julius
Baer said in a statement. “Given the early stage of these discussions, the
outcome is entirely open,” it added.

BoA Merrill Lynch has not yet commented about a possible
sale. It did not respond to this publication’s request for comment at the time
of going to press.

The non-US wealth unit of BoA Merrill Lynch  has around $90 billion of assets around the
world. Purchase price estimates vary: a media report gave one figure as high as
$3 billion, while others have been between $1.5 billion and $2 billion. One
European bank has told this publication that a purchase price in the region of
$2 billion or above is far too high for the size of assets in question, and
that it might be likely that banks will want to acquire teams of managers from
BoA Merrill Lynch instead.

Analysts have told WealthBriefing
that such a transaction would make sense as BoA, which acquired Merrill Lynch
in 2009, has failed to achieve critical mass in its non-US wealth business in
recent years.

If a deal does take place, it will represent one of the
bigger merger and acquisition deals in wealth management during recent years.
Despite talk of how the sector, faced with tighter margins, is ripe for a wave
of consolidation, actual deals have tended to lag behind the talk. There have
been some piecemeal changes, such as the move by Brazil’s
Safra Group to buy the controlling stake in Switzerland’s Sarasin, the private
bank, from its previous owner, Netherlands-based Rabobank.