O’Neal Walks Away With $161 million

by Stewart Douglas

Story link: O’Neal Walks Away With $161 million

According to media reported today former Merrill Lynch chief executive has received a retirement offering in excess of $160 million following his departure from post at the leading investment bank in light of their sub-prime losses realised last quarter.

The move sees the under fire executive, who was ushered out of the company yesterday, take a package comprising of over $5 million in compensation, $131.4 million worth of Merrill Lynch stocks and $24.7 in what has been described as ‘retirement benefits’, as part of his golden parachute dismissal package.

His retirement was forced by the bank in response to their substantial losses in the third quarter, derived solely from a massive $8 billion writedown to reflect losses in its innovative sub-prime securities trading, a venture that both earned O’Neal respect at its inception and was eventually his downfall five years in the job.

Mr O’Neal, a Harvard MBA graduate took over at Merrill Lynch back in 2001 and saw in a number of years of strong success at the firm, earning him the respect and praise of colleagues and the market as a whole.  His inventive move of selling packaged sub-prime securities to investors proved both lucrative and fatal to his career in equal measure.

O’Neal has come under intense media scrutiny prior to his departure calling for his head from shareholders and the media alike, prompting reports from within the company that the board had already decided his days were numbered.

The board reportedly thrashed out the deal with Mr O’Neal over the course of the weekend and in to the early part of this week prior to his forced retirement.

The search has now commenced for his successor, with the prospect of an internal appointment looking a slimmer possibility as the firm looks to attractive fresh new ideas to its management.