Fund management profile: Merrill Lynch Investment Managers

With more than a century of history behind it, Merrill Lynch has a string of firsts to its financial - as well as moral - credit. From hiring the first woman bond salesperson to being the first on Wall Street to issue a financial report, to naming Stanley O'Neal as the first African-American president of a bulge-bracket financial services company. Perhaps relevant to these testing times, Charles Merrill was noted for bucking the tide of euphoria leading up to the 1929 crash. Merrill Lynch's