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{{Short description|American business executive}}
{{Infobox person
|name = E. Stanley O'Neal
|image = Stanley O'Neal - Merrill EX-CEO on C-SPAN.png
|caption =
|birth_name =
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|resting_place =
|resting_place_coordinates = <!-- {{coord|LAT|LONG|display=inline,title}} -->
|known_for =
|education = [[Bachelor of Science|B.S.]] in [[business administration|Industrial Administration]]<br />[[M.B.A]] in [[Finance]]
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|occupation =
|years_active =
|boards = [[
▲|boards = [[Alcoa]]<br />Platform Specialty Products Corporation<ref>[http://ir.platformspecialtyproducts.com/directors.cfm Board of Directors], Platform Specialty Products Corporation</ref>
|spouse = Nancy Garvey
|children = 2
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|website =
|footnotes =
}}
'''Earnest Stanley O'Neal''' (born October 7, 1951<ref name=":0">{{Cite web|last=McNally|first=Deborah|date=2007-12-02|title=Stanley O'Neal (1951- )|url=https://www.blackpast.org/african-american-history/oneal-stanley-1951/|access-date=2020-09-01|language=en-US}}</ref>) is an American [[business executive]] who was formerly chairman and chief executive of [[Merrill Lynch]] having served in numerous senior management positions at the company prior to this appointment. O'Neal was criticized for his performance during his tenure as chief executive at Merrill Lynch, where he oversaw the deterioration of the firm's stability and capital position, which resulted in his ouster in September 2007, and the firm's eventual fire sale to [[Bank of America]] one year later.<ref>[https://www.usnews.com/money/blogs/flowchart/2009/09/03/10-gaffes-by-doomed-ceos.html 10 Gaffes by Doomed CEOs] on www.usnews.com</ref> Prior to his tenure as
▲'''Earnest Stanley O'Neal''' (born October 7, 1951) is an American [[business executive]] who was formerly chairman and chief executive of [[Merrill Lynch]] having served in numerous senior management positions at the company prior to this appointment. O'Neal was criticized for his performance during his tenure as chief executive at Merrill Lynch, where he oversaw the deterioration of the firm's stability and capital position, which resulted in his ouster in September 2007, and the firm's eventual fire sale to [[Bank of America]] one year later.<ref>[https://www.usnews.com/money/blogs/flowchart/2009/09/03/10-gaffes-by-doomed-ceos.html 10 Gaffes by Doomed CEOs] on www.usnews.com</ref> Prior to his tenure as Chairman and CEO, [[Merrill Lynch]] had thrived as a stand-alone company since 1914.
In 2002, O'Neal was named the “Most Powerful Black Executive in America” by ''[[Fortune (magazine)|Fortune]]'' magazine.
O'Neal was a member of the [[board of directors]] of [[General Motors Corporation|General Motors]] from 2001 through 2006. He currently serves on the board of [[Alcoa]].▼
▲O'Neal was a member of the [[board of directors]] of [[General Motors Corporation|General Motors]] from 2001 through 2006. He
== Early years ==
Born into poverty in [[Roanoke, Alabama]],<ref>{{Cite web|title=Stan O'Neal: The Rise and Fall of a Numbers Guy|url=https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=15738661|access-date=2020-09-01|website=NPR.org|language=en}}</ref> Earnest Stanley O’Neal was the grandson of a former slave. He was the eldest child of Earnest O’Neal, a farmer, and Ann Scales, a domestic. In the first years of his life, O'Neal was surrounded by his extended family on his grandfather's farm, "picking cotton and corn in his grandfather’s fields." He also sold and delivered newspapers.<ref name=":0" />
== College years ==
Their family fortunes improved when Stanley's father landed a job at the General Motors (GM) factory.<ref name=":0" /> O'Neal's father moved his family from [[Wedowee, Alabama]], to [[Atlanta]], where he worked on a General Motors [[assembly line]].<ref>Andrew Ross Sorkin. ''Too Big to Fail.'' Penguin, 2009, p. 144.</ref> Stan O'Neal also worked briefly on GM's assembly line as a teenager under a work-study program offered by the [[General Motors Institute]] (later known as [[Kettering University]]),<ref>"[http://www.blackpast.org/?q=aah/oneal-stanley-1951 O'Neal, Stanley (1951- )]", blackpast.org</ref> where he gained a degree in industrial administration in 1974. GM later provided O'Neal a scholarship to attend [[Harvard Business School]], where he attained his [[MBA]] in 1978 and later rejoined GM as a Treasury Analyst.<ref name="Euromoney">[http://www.euromoney.com/article.asp?ArticleID=1042086 How Stan O'Neal went from the production line to the front line of investment banking]</ref>
== Career ==
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In 1986, O'Neal joined Merrill Lynch and, by the early 1990s, he was running Merrill's leveraged finance division.<ref>[https://books.google.com/books?id=dF4EAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA84 Junk Bonds Bounce Back]. Black Enterprise, October 1992</ref> After spells as global head of capital markets and co-head of the corporate and institutional client group, he spent two years as [[CFO]] from 1998 to 2000. In 2000, he was appointed president of the U.S. Private Client Group, the first executive of the division that oversees Merrill's brokerage who had not himself been a broker. O'Neal led massive layoffs within the division.
O'Neal became president of the firm in 2001 in a palace intrigue that eventually led to the early ouster of his predecessor and one-time mentor [[David Komansky]].<ref>"[http://www.nydailynews.com/archives/money/komansky-merrill-ceo-article-1.505855 KOMANSKY OUT AS MERRILL CEO]", Eric Herman, ''NY Daily News'', July 23, 2002</ref> By 2003, he was CEO and chairman.<ref name="Euromoney" /> O'Neal was one of the first African Americans to hold such a high position on Wall Street. He earned $48 million in 2006 and $46 million in 2007.<ref>{{
As CEO, O'Neal attempted to get rid of the 'Mother Merrill' culture of [[job security]], arguing that it promoted [[cronyism]] instead of merit. He also wanted to transform Merrill into a trading powerhouse, and to beat [[Goldman Sachs]] at its own game. After the departure of Chris Ricciardi in 2006, O'Neal hired
O'Neal was regarded as out of touch as the market changed and Merrill steered towards trouble, as he had "become isolated from his own firm. He had no idea that key risk managers had been pushed aside or that the people he had put in important positions were out of their depth".<ref name="vanityfair.com"/> O'Neal was described as a manager who "had never been the kind of C.E.O. who walked the trading floor. By 2006, he was so divorced from his own firm that he failed to appreciate the utter lunacy of Semerci’s desire to clean house. Did he really think Semerci could get rid of Merrill’s most experienced mortgage traders and not harm the mortgage desk? Sadly, it seems that O’Neal didn’t think about it at all."<ref name="vanityfair.com"/> "At the same time Goldman executives were canceling vacations to deal with the burgeoning subprime crisis, O’Neal was often on the golf course, playing round after round by himself", in fact six months before [[Bear Stearns]] nearly collapsed
During August and September 2007, as the [[subprime mortgage crisis]] swept through the global financial market, Merrill Lynch announced losses of $8 billion. O'Neal finally realized the huge exposure that Merrill had to subprime mortgage-backed CDOs, and that the firm would have to be sold in order to survive.<ref name=far/><ref name="cnbc.com">[https://www.cnbc.com/id/30502091?slide=4 Portfolio's Worst American CEOs of All Time] 18, Stanley O'Neal</ref> As the crisis worsened, O'Neal approached [[Bank of America]] and [[Wachovia Bank]] about a possible merger, without first obtaining the approval of Merrill's Board of Directors, which led to his ouster.<ref>[https://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aap3.z0pzEIc&refer=home O'Neal Ouster Makes Mess of Maternal Merrill Lynch], Bradley Keoun, bloomberg.com October 29, 2007</ref> On October 30, 2007, O'Neal resigned as CEO. He left with a [[severance package]] including Merrill stock and options worth $161.5 million on top of the $91.4 million in total compensation he earned in 2006.<ref name=FCIR>{{cite book|title=Financial Crisis Inquiry Report|year=2011|publisher=GPO|page=257|url=http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/GPO-FCIC/pdf/GPO-FCIC.pdf}}</ref><ref>[
===Post-resignation===
The board hired [[John Thain]] from [[NYSE Euronext]] to replace O'Neal as chairman and CEO, believing that Thain could save the business, however the markets and the firm continued to deteriorate in 2008. Thain was forced to merge Merrill with Bank of America in September 2008, the weekend
On January 18, 2008, O'Neal was named to the board of directors of Alcoa.<ref>"[http://www.alcoa.com/global/en/news/news_detail.asp?newsYear=2008&pageID=20080118005598en Alcoa Appoints Two New Directors]", Stan O'Neal and Michael G. Morris to Join Company Board of Directors, alcoa.com, January 18, 2008</ref>
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O'Neal is said to have an "abrasive" personality.<ref name="cnbc.com"/> When Thain arrived at Merrill he scrapped O'Neal's practice of having the security guards always hold an entire elevator bank open exclusively for him.<ref>Sorkin, ''Too Big to Fail'', p. 141.</ref>
CNBC includes O'Neal in their list of "Worst American CEOs of All Time".<ref name="cnbc.com"/> The New York Times Magazine on April 18, 2010, described O'Neal as one of the "feckless dolts" who helped precipitate the financial crisis of 2007. During the final hearings prior to the firm's merger with Bank of America, numerous people – including a founder's son, [[Winthrop H. Smith, Jr.|Win Smith]] – laid the blame on O'Neal for the firm's downfall and loss of independence.<ref>"[https://web.archive.org/web/20081231052345/http://www.forbes.com/wallstreet/2008/12/05/merrill-lynch-oneal-biz-wall-cz_mc_1205merrill.html?partner=contextstory Merrill Founder's Son Rips O'Neal For Firm's Death]", 12/05/2008, forbes.com</ref>
=== Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission ===
On March
==References==
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* [http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2008/03/31/080331fa_fact_cassidy John Cassidy, "Subprime Suspect," ''The New Yorker'', March 31, 2008] (detailed online abstract)
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20060518031337/http://www.alumni.hbs.edu/bulletin/2001/june/profile.html Harvard Business School ''Bulletin'' profile]
* [
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[[Category:American business executives]]
[[Category:American chief executives of financial services companies]]
[[Category:General Motors
[[Category:Harvard Business School alumni]]
[[Category:Kettering University alumni]]
[[Category:Merrill
[[Category:1951 births]]
[[Category:
[[Category:21st-century African-American people]]
[[Category:20th-century African-American people]]
[[Category:Great Recession]]
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