Tag Archives: Merrill Lynch

Private Jets and Gold-Plated Toilets

I imagine other people hear about Citi’s reluctance to give up its new $50 million private jet, financed by the taxpayer’s $45 billion bailout of the company, and of the $1.2 million used to renovate the bathroom of Merrill Lynch’s CEO, and they think things like “corporate greed,” “arrogance,” “supreme cluelessness.” I, however, think of […]

Sorry For the Expensive Loo

Financial company executives are making a habit of apologizing for bad decisions and/or bad behavior these days. Or, at the very least, admitting they got some serious ‘splainin’ to do. Following the trend, John Thain quickly responded to the charges leveled at him last week by journalists and Bank of America insiders. The characterization of Thain as ethically […]

A Thainful Lesson

News that former Merrill Lynch CEO John Thain was dumped from Bank of America yesterday capped a remarkably tone-deaf period in Thain’s otherwise successful ascent of the Wall Street ladder. After being brought in to restore confidence in Merrill in 2007, and then hailed as a shareholder savior when he arranged Merrill’s sale to BofA […]