Content deleted Content added
→Merrill Lynch: copyedit |
→Merrill Lynch: cleanup Tags: Mobile edit Mobile web edit |
||
Line 50:
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]",
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, O'Neal hired [[Osman Semerci]] on the advice of fixed-income head Dow Kim and chief administrative officer Ahmass Fakahany. Semerci continued the push into the [[subprime mortgage]]-backed [[CDO]] market, and grew the firm's position from $5
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 Merril added tens of billions of risky securities to its balance sheet while Goldman moved to reduce exposure.<ref name="vanityfair.com"/>
During August and September 2007, as the [[sub-prime 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>
===Post-resignation===
|