Merrill Lynch announced the retirement of Stan O'Neal this morning. No shocker there, as the inside bet was a resignation today.
What is interesting is that it is being labeled a resignation, rather than a termination. We will have to wait to see whether he is "retiring" to (a) spend more time with his family, (b) pursue other interests, or (c) relax and work on his golf game, but with a reported $160 million in retirement benefits, we won't worry too much about Mr. O'Neal.
One hundred and sixty million dollars. An executive leads a somewhat sinking ship, the firm loses billions of dollars during his tenure, he is outsted, and he gets $160 million dollars. That is more money than most of this country makes in a lifetime.
Not that we begrudge Mr. O'Neal his bargained-for compensation and retirement benefits, but someone has to re-think these compensation packages.
The story from Reuters, AP, NYT, WSJ
UPDATE: Merrill said that the board had elected Alberto Cribiore, the founder of the private equity firm Brera Capital, and a Merrill director as interim non-executive chairman, and as the head of the search committee for a new CEO. This afternoon O'Neal also resigned as a director of Blackrock.
