It's not often that a Bank of America initiative gets applauded by Merrill Lynch staff these days. But BofA has hit the ball out of the park with its ML rebranding effort.

Although some Merrill staff will be a little put out that the signage outside the firm's Manhattan Tower in New York and Merrill Lynch Financial Centre (MLFC) in London are being changed to 'Bank of America Merrill Lynch', to reflect the new ownership, Merrill's London-based staff are said to be mighty pleased about some of the other changes Bank of America is making there.

First off, it looks like the Merrill Lynch 'core values', which are set in stone on the ground floor of MLFC in London are to be sanded off. The values - 'Integrity, Responsible Citizenship & Respect for the Individual' have had staff and visitors reaching for the sick bucket for years. And then there's the case of the ML desk-top picture - you know, the pic that get when you first turn on your PC. Well, it used to say: 'Excellence, Integrity and a Performance-based Culture', something many Merrill Lynchers said stuck in their throats after former CEO Stan O'Neal, who most see as the man responsible for the fall of the firm, walked off with an exit package of some $160m. The pic has now been replaced by a plain Bank of America logo.

One Merrill staffer told Here Is The City: 'It's almost worth all the pain of being taken over just to see all that nonsense coming down - almost!'.

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