Business

Merrill Lynch chief to be replaced soon
by Corina Ciubotaru

After the mortgage crisis threw the entire American financial system into chaos, the financial companies are starting to plunge into their own personal nightmares. Merrill Lynch said it will fire its chairman and chief executive Stan O'Neal after the company wrote off $8 billion and a net loss of $2.3 billion for the third quarter. During his time in lead of the company, Merrill had its best times and its worst times. In the peak of the market, O'Neal steered it towards riskier bets rather than just safe loans, which made for very high gains, but it also brought it down now, as the market is fragile. Bear Stearns, Citi Financial and Bank of America all suffered great losses during these months, but Merrill's boss is the most likely to leave his job. Merrill Lynch was accused for the losses and for not managing the risks correctly while Mr. O'Neal personally is blamed for apparently intending to sell the company to Wachovia Corp., a transaction that would have brought him $250 million even if he wasn't chosen to run the new company. His replacement will be chosen most likely between Laurence Fink, the chairman and CEO of BlackRock Inc., an asset manager; Gregory Fleming, Merrill's co-president and Bob McCann, the head of the brokerage division. Another rumor is that the three will jointly run the company until a new chairman is chosen to replace O'Neal, who was not very popular after he cut staff and costs as the market was turning.

related story: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20071028/ap_on_bi_ge/merrill_lynch_ceo;_ylt=ApOtTqugbu3uxxvs7Asku3es0NUE

by Corina Ciubotaru for PocketNews (http://pocketnews.tv)

PocketNews is a new real-time news broadcaster delivering the latest and hottest news right to your pocket ! With global clients who want to be kept up to date, PocketNews is everyone's way of keeping in touch with the World.

posted by Blog TechSource @ 4:29 PM