So he goes and sells the company? Wha!! When he was hired a short year ago MER was trading at around 55 or so. What happened to Mr. financial expert Thain turning the company around? Instead he gets rid of it at a bargain basement price. I could've done that and I didn't even go to an Ivy league school. I swear some CEO's are worthless morons, they manage to run 150 year old firms into the ground and are praised when they sell them at the bottom.
what the fuck are you talking about. John Thain was the best thing that could've happened to ML. He bite the bullet and sold a huge chunk of the toxic when noone was willing to sell. Then sold mer for $29 (at the time) to BAC. Given the conditions, it is an excellent deal for mer. He probably saved mer from lehman's fate. clueless....
So basically what you 2 are saying is that BAC got TOTALLY ripped off and diluted their firm buy buying a worthless company? Not only did they buy a worthless merrill, but they jumped at the opportunity and did it in 48 hours. Think long are hard about that, especially the moron newguy.
Thain did well, he brought nyse out of the dredges, and was hired as a trouble shooter for MS. He did what he had to do
If you people think that the board of bank of america and ken lewis are seriously out of their mind.. then I think your out of your mind. They've averted disaster over and over again.. they know risk management like no other. Believe me they know what they are doing .. and frankly over 4 - 5 year the buyout of country wide and marrill will be proven as the smartest decision made by a CEO during these crises. Uncle Sam has bank of americas back 100% .. Do not think otherwise !
this makes you half right. Anyone can be a winner if you have no risk. BoA purchase of Merill makes no sense right now If boA is healthy. but they are not, They will have to mark to market, and absorb the losses. This deal will not happen at this price. Where is the liquidity coming from? This is a back room deal engineered by Paulson. Why? Because Bernanke is telling them hes done. The pump is gone, he got the chinese screaming in the phone how if the dollar slides again on rate cuts they are gonna unwind. This was a deal whipped up in 48hrs. With Paulson strong arming Lewis and Thain to get ahead of Lehman and prop up the banks. These men are the 4 horseman
You dont seem to understand if MER wasnt bought out, today it would be cut in half or much worse, so thain did a good job. And yes i dont think BAC got a good deal, noone really knows why they bought MER at such a premium ($12, 70%). You are a clueless tool.
good answer, I guess ET's finest is smarter than the entire executive team at BAC... It may be time to try for that GED.
This was discussed about 15 minutes ago on Charlie Rose; it's not a dumb statement. Might be time to realize that the "executive teams" really aren't that smart.