Stan O’Neal, former CEO of Wall Street icon Merrill Lynch was fired yesterday by the board of directors for his inability to manage the risk associated with buying and selling notes tied to sub-prime mortgages. Last week, Merrill Lynch announced the largest lost in it’s company’s history with the write down of over $7 billion in financial instruments tied to the mortgage industry. They lost nearly $8 billion overall for the quarter.
According to this story in the Financial Times, O’Neal walks with $160 million. Not bad for overseeing the loss of $8 billion which is real money and likely affects thousand and thousands of bond holders throughout the country.
This is a great example of how you can win for losing.