XOM
01-22-2009, 02:28 PM
Be sure and read the last line in this story...nothing has changed on the Street.
Jan. 22 (Bloomberg)
-- John Thain, who engineered the sale of 95-year-old Merrill Lynch & Co. to Bank of America Corp. in September, was ousted after Merrill’s $15.4 billion loss forced the bank to seek more money from the U.S. rescue fund.
Thain, 53, “agreed his situation was not working out and that he should resign,” said Robert Stickler, a Bank of America spokesman, in an e-mail. The resignation ends Thain’s tenure with the Charlotte, North Carolina-based bank less than a month after Merrill’s takeover was completed.
Thain negotiated the sale in with Bank of America Chief Executive Offier Kenneth Lewis, 61, whose credibility was undercut when the brokerage reported a record fourth-quarter deficit. Lewis, who considered backing out of the deal when he learned of the extent of Merrill’s losses last month, went ahead at the insistence of U.S. regulators who provided a new $138 billion aid package.
Lewis “is by no means in his job in any secure way,” Gary Townsend, president of Hill-Townsend Capital LLC in Chevy Chase, Maryland, said in a Bloomberg Radio. “Ken Lewis has his issues.”
Trading chief Tom Montag, 52, who was hired by Thain from Goldman Sachs Group Inc., will stay with the company, according to Stickler.
Thain had headed Bank of America’s wealth management and corporate and investment banking divisions. Senior Merrill executives Robert McCann and Greg Fleming resigned less than a week after the transaction was completed on Jan. 1.
Thain this year spent $1.2 million to redecorate his office at New York-based Merrill, CNBC reported today.
Jan. 22 (Bloomberg)
-- John Thain, who engineered the sale of 95-year-old Merrill Lynch & Co. to Bank of America Corp. in September, was ousted after Merrill’s $15.4 billion loss forced the bank to seek more money from the U.S. rescue fund.
Thain, 53, “agreed his situation was not working out and that he should resign,” said Robert Stickler, a Bank of America spokesman, in an e-mail. The resignation ends Thain’s tenure with the Charlotte, North Carolina-based bank less than a month after Merrill’s takeover was completed.
Thain negotiated the sale in with Bank of America Chief Executive Offier Kenneth Lewis, 61, whose credibility was undercut when the brokerage reported a record fourth-quarter deficit. Lewis, who considered backing out of the deal when he learned of the extent of Merrill’s losses last month, went ahead at the insistence of U.S. regulators who provided a new $138 billion aid package.
Lewis “is by no means in his job in any secure way,” Gary Townsend, president of Hill-Townsend Capital LLC in Chevy Chase, Maryland, said in a Bloomberg Radio. “Ken Lewis has his issues.”
Trading chief Tom Montag, 52, who was hired by Thain from Goldman Sachs Group Inc., will stay with the company, according to Stickler.
Thain had headed Bank of America’s wealth management and corporate and investment banking divisions. Senior Merrill executives Robert McCann and Greg Fleming resigned less than a week after the transaction was completed on Jan. 1.
Thain this year spent $1.2 million to redecorate his office at New York-based Merrill, CNBC reported today.