Merrill Lynch & Co. Inc. announced that co-president of the company’s Global Markets and Investment Banking group, Dow Kim, an executive vice president, has informed the company that he plans to leave by the end of the year in order to establish a multi-strategy, private investment firm.

The company said it expects to be an initial client of Kim’s new firm and that Kim would also serve as an advisor to senior management for a transition period. “For some time now, Dow has expressed a desire to found his own business and put his investment and quantitative skills to work to realize his personal vision in the markets,” said Stan O’Neal, Merrill Lynch chairman and CEO, in a news release. “We’ve agreed that, with our businesses performing extremely well and an accomplished team of senior managers now running the company’s institutional operations around the world, this is an opportune time for him to venture out on his own.”

“Any time you make a major career change, it brings a certain level of apprehension,” said Kim. “It would be easy to remain at Merrill Lynch and continue to do what I have been doing here successfully, surrounded by people I trust and respect. But I have had as a personal goal founding and running my own firm, and I don’t think there ever will be a more opportune moment than now for me to explore how best to do so.”

Merrill Lynch said Kim expects to be available to the firm through the end of the year. The company said the specifics of its potential affiliation with Kim’s firm were still being negotiated and would be announced at a later date.

Also, Merrill has appointed Ahmass Fakahany and Gregory Fleming to the new positions of co-presidents of Merrill Lynch, the company announced today. Fakahany, 48, is currently the company’s vice chairman and chief administrative officer and Fleming, 44, is the company’s executive vice president and co-president of the company’s Global Markets and Investment Banking group.

“Ahmass and Greg have been key players – and partners – in the ambitious program we undertook in 2003 to remake Merrill Lynch into a diversified global markets, investment banking and wealth management organization able to compete successfully worldwide,” said O’Neal. “We currently are realizing many of the benefits of that work and we decided it was the right time for Greg and Ahmass to assume greater responsibility.

“We are in a new stage of our development as a company,” added O’Neal. “We’ve built a deep pool of management talent, strengthened and expanded our capital markets, banking and wealth management capabilities, and extended our global footprint. Many of the opportunities we are now beginning to seize are cross-functional, involving the integration of these capabilities in order to fully realize the potential of Merrill Lynch. Ahmass and Greg are strong leaders who are ready to play a larger role helping us to step up the pace of integration and in driving the revenue growth that we expect to result throughout the company.”

The company said Fakahany and Fleming will continue to report to O’Neal and will be jointly responsible for oversight of all of the company’s operating businesses and related support services. The company’s finance function will report directly to O’Neal.