Global Institutional Consulting

Global Institutional Consulting is a specialized group of designated advisors within Bank of America Merrill Lynch that delivers institutional service on a personal level, including portfolio strategies, investment consulting services and institutional philanthropic management. Global Institutional Consulting Advisors can help your institution prepare a strategy designed to address your particular financial landscape.

Global Institutional Consulting puts the strength of Bank of America Merrill Lynch to work in our clients' best interests. Through a close working relationship with a dedicated advisor, your institution receives advice and guidance, specialized expertise, and investment solutions tailored to your organization's specific needs.

This relationship provides you with access to our broad spectrum of capabilities, which includes retirement and benefit planning, philanthropic and nonprofit management, and investment consulting. Committed to helping your institution navigate the financial landscape and seize opportunities to help pursue your goals, we take the time to listen to and understand your specific needs. We then implement customized investment strategies consistent with your organization's investment objectives.

A Global Institutional Consulting Advisor is dedicated to supporting your institution's evolving needs and goals and draws upon our global resources and intellectual capital to implement an investment solution designed to meet those needs. This includes dedicated specialists with expertise in alternative investments, philanthropy and nonprofit management, retirement and benefit plan services, and investment banking and capital markets. These specialists can provide you with access to:

• A global relationship network composed of carefully screened alternative investment

• managers that can provide customized alternative investment solutions as well as expertise in product development, due diligence, investment analytics and portfolio construction.

• Experienced professionals offering philanthropic consulting services and solutions tailored to the specific needs of your organization, including donor development and endowment-building strategies; spending policy analysis, trust and custody services; tax reporting; and fiduciary services.

• Retirement & Benefit professionals with expertise in providing a full spectrum of benefit solutions such as strategic investment consulting, asset-liability modeling and enhanced risk management to help you build and maintain an employee benefit plan that will meet the needs of your organization and help your employees prepare for retirement with confidence.

• Investment banking and capital markets specialists who provide sales and trading services across the debt, equity, commodities and foreign exchange markets as well as capital-raising, merger and acquisition, and other advisory services with specialized sector expertise

Your Global Institutional Consulting Advisor follows a disciplined process that is grounded in our experience working with institutional investors. This rigorous and repeatable investment methodology allows us to respond to your organization's changing needs and provides you with a potentially higher probability of achieving your long-term investment goals.

Step 1: Investment Policy Statement Development and Review

Assist you in developing and maintaining a customized written road map to guide your investment strategy and help you stay on course.

Step 2: Strategic Allocation Modeling

Help you customize a suitable asset allocation based on our proprietary capital market assumptions.

Step 3: Investment Manager Due Diligence

Deliver recommended investment solutions by leveraging Merrill Lynch's thorough and objective due diligence process.

Step 4: Investment Manager Search & Selection

Combine client specific objectives with industry-leading portfolio construction techniques and Merrill Lynch's capital markets guidance.

Step 5: Portfolio Strategy

Leverage Merrill Lynch's global intellectual capital to consider tactical tilts to portfolios in an effort to increase returns.

Step 6: Performance Measurement

Monitor, quantify and evaluate performance to identify opportunities to re­fine your portfolio's overall strategy relative to your Investment Policy Statement

Global Institutional Consulting Advisors are experienced critical thinkers with a complete understanding of the institutional markets and the complex needs of institutions. In addition to having strong track records of successfully serving institutional clients, they must meet the requirements of a rigorous selection process established by Bank of America Merrill Lynch. They are also required to possess advanced professional credentials, such as CIMA® (Certified Investment Management Analyst^SM) or CFA® (Chartered Financial Analyst®) designations, and undertake ongoing professional development coursework. Global Institutional Consulting Advisors are dedicated to meeting the needs of institutional clients and are uniquely qualified to help your organization address your financial situations—large and small.

• Sophisticated investment consulting: more than 40 years of investment consulting experience delivered by a select group of designated institutional investment advisors.

• Breadth and depth of resources: access to global resources and intellectual capital. Independence: strength of objective advice delivered for the benefit of clients.

• Pricing flexibility: cost-effective solutions focused on the unique needs of institutional clients.

• Dedicated relationship team: offers effective, objective solutions by understanding your needs.

• Flexible culture: customized solutions and client service tied to your institution's overall interests and goals.

• Robust suite of integrated tools: access to detailed analytics and targeted reports that provide extensive insight into your organization's financial landscape.