Merrill Lynch Wealth Management Webcast to Explore the Unique Challenges Women Face When Preparing for Retirement

Merrill Lynch Wealth Management will host a live webcast, “Women and Retirement: Investing for the Life You Want,” on Thursday, June 16, 7 - 8 p.m. EDT. Moderated by award-winning journalist and former ABC News anchor Charles Gibson, the program will explore the demographic, economic and societal issues that uniquely challenge women’s retirement planning, often despite their rising economic power. During the discussion, a panel of wealth management and personal finance professionals, best-selling authors and writers on women issues will also provide actionable strategies to help women better prepare for the life they want to live in retirement.

For the fifth in this five-part series of live, retirement-focused webcasts hosted by Merrill Lynch Wealth Management, Gibson will be joined by:

• Sallie Krawcheck, president of Bank of America Global Wealth and Investment Management (GWIM) and one of Fortune’s “Most Powerful Women” in business for the last eight years.
• David Bach, personal finance expert and one of the most popular authors of our time with 11 national best sellers, including “Smart Women Finish Rich” and “Smart Couples Finish Rich.”
• Kay Koplovitz, founder of USA Network and the first woman network president in television history, chairman of Liz Claiborne Inc., co-founder of the venture capital forum Springboard Enterprises and author of “Bold Women, Big Ideas.”
• Hanna Rosin, founding editor of Slate.com’s women’s site DoubleX and contributing editor to The Atlantic.

“Our research shows that 63 percent1 of affluent women are concerned about outliving their retirement assets,” said Krawcheck. “This statistic isn’t so surprising considering women have longer life expectancies and commonly experience career disruptions when raising children and caring for aging parents. As an industry, we must be deeply attuned to the unique needs and investing behaviors of women and provide tailored advice and solutions to help them reach their retirement goals.”

Merrill Lynch Wealth Management launched the retirement webcast series in April 2010 to explore the evolving definition of retirement and to assist Americans in reaching their goals in later life. Topics explored during this series include adjusting financial strategies to create a meaningful Second Act, the intrinsic connection between health care and retirement planning, and the financial hurdles and opportunities facing younger Americans.

Since April 2010, more than 3 million unique viewers have tuned in for these live and on-demand webcasts. To view the live webcast on June 16 and previous webcasts on-demand, visit http://www.ml.com/retire.

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1Merrill Lynch Affluent Insights Survey, January 2011