Merrill ARS customers to get money in a year

Merrill Lynch clients who hold auction rate securities should get their money back within a year, said John Thain, the chief executive of Merrill Lynch & Co. Inc.

Mr. Thain told reporters yesterday at a press conference in Mumbai, India, that about 23% of the ARS held by Merrill clients had already been refinanced, and that he expected over the “next 12 months or so, we will see the securities get [fully] refinanced by the issuers and the customers get their money back," he said, according to Dow Jones Newswires.

Last month, Mr. Thain told analysts that New York-based Merrill clients own about $18.5 billion of ARS.

Some $12 billion of that amount are issues of closed-end funds, which are the “most problematic,” he said.

Merrill has been working with closed-end funds to refinance the securities, Mr. Thain told the analysts.

He also said yesterday that Merrill's pricing services continue to value ARS at par, but that lower values could result if that situation changes.

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