“Bank of America Corp (BAC.N) is looking to diversify its investment banking business by doing more equity underwriting and merger advisory work and by winning more clients outside the United States, a senior executive said on Tuesday.

“Underwriting debt “has been one of [Bank of America’s] great strengths, but clearly thebusiness is changing” as industry-wide volumes look set to fall in 2014, said Christian Meissner, head of global corporate and investment banking at Bank of America Merrill Lynch, at an investor conference in New York organized by Deutsche Bank.

“Bank of America has been more reliant than its competitors on generating fees from underwriting debt. In 2013, debt issuance accounted for nearly 60 percent of total investment banking fees, compared to nearly 56 percent at JPMorgan Chase & Co (JPM.N) and around 39 percent for Goldman Sachs Group Inc (GS.N).”

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