Merrill Lynch CEO Gone After Covert Attempt to Sell

Merrill Lynch has suffered big losses since housing and credit woes hit rock bottom. CEO Stan O'Neal reported a $2.2 billion loss in the third quarter, as he wrote off almost eight billion. It was just last week that O'Neal tried to sell the company off to Wachovia without first talking with his board members. They were so upset about it that they were already going over possible replacements last week, so this comes to no surprise.

O'Neal is reported to of stepped down himself, but he knew his outing was just around the corner. Since he took over the company four years ago around 30,000 people have lost their jobs, and he's never been very popular among the financial community to say the least. He is the first CEO to be outed since the housing and mortgage woes. The stock was down today because of the uncertainty of who will succeed O'Neal, and no word yet on who that will be. He is set to receive a rather large exit package, and like all the other embattled CEOs in the past that didn't do their jobs well, plenty of people won't be happy about this, especially those 30,000 that don't have their jobs. But Mr. O'Neal seems to only be thinking of himself as always, as his exit statement only mentions his opportunities and gains from being with the company.

Merrill Lynch said O'Neal "decided to retire" and its board of directors had elected Alberto Cribiore, a member of the board since 2003, as interim non-executive chairman and chair of a search committee to recruit a new chief executive.

The firm said it would look within its ranks and elsewhere for a new CEO.

"Mr. O'Neal and the board of directors both agreed that a change in leadership would best enable Merrill Lynch to move forward and focus on maintaining the strong operating performance of its businesses, which the company last week reported were performing well, apart from subprime mortgages and CDOs (collaterized debt obligations)," Merrill Lynch said in a statement.