Korea Investment Corp., South Korea's sovereign wealth corp. has made its mind to hold on to its $800 million stake in the Bank of America as it foresees the shares of the bank will prove beneficial once the economy perks up.

Chief investment officer of Korea Investment Corp., Scott Kalb, said in Seoul, "We do believe the U. S. economy will recover and we think Bank of America shares will recover along with the economy."

Korea Investment Corp., which possesses around 62 million shares in the bank, obtained the stake when its holdings in Merrill Lynch & Co. were converted into BofA's shares after Bank of America acquired Merrill Lynch.

Korea Investment Corp. had invested $2 billion in Merrill Lynch & Co. in January 2008.

On the other hand, Bank of America Corp., the largest US bank by assets is trying its best to hire again many of those senior Merrill Lynch & Co. investment bankers who had left after the merger of the firms.

The supervision work for the same is on the shoulders of Samuel Chapin, a Former Merrill vice chairman and Brian Moynihan, who sees the combined firm's investment bank.

Executives who left their jobs include John Thain, Merrill Lynch CEO, President Gregory Fleming, Alan Hartman who used to handle mergers and acquisitions.

Since June, three Merrill Lynch executives viz. Fares Noujaim, Steven Baronoff and Harry McMahon who did not quit the firm got promotions.