E. Stanley O'Neal
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Earnest Stanley O'Neal (born October 7, 1951) is an American
business executive A business executive is a person responsible for running an organization, although the exact nature of the role varies depending on the organization. Executives run companies or government agencies. They create plans to help their organizations ...
who was formerly chairman and chief executive of Merrill Lynch having served in numerous senior management positions at the company prior to this appointment. O'Neal was criticized for his performance during his tenure as chief executive at Merrill Lynch, where he oversaw the deterioration of the firm's stability and capital position, which resulted in his ouster in September 2007, and the firm's eventual fire sale to
Bank of America The Bank of America Corporation (often abbreviated BofA or BoA) is an American multinational investment bank and financial services holding company headquartered at the Bank of America Corporate Center in Charlotte, North Carolina. The bank ...
one year later. Prior to his tenure as Chairman and CEO, Merrill Lynch had thrived as a stand-alone company since 1914. In 2002, O'Neal was named the “Most Powerful Black Executive in America” by '' Fortune'' magazine. O'Neal was a member of the board of directors of General Motors from 2001 through 2006. He also served on the board of Alcoa.


Early years

Born into poverty in
Roanoke, Alabama Roanoke is a city in Randolph County, Alabama, Randolph County, which is in the Piedmont (United States), Piedmont region of eastern Alabama, United States. As of the 2020 census, the population of the city was 5,311, down from 6,074 in 2010 and 6 ...
, Earnest Stanley O’Neal was the grandson of a former slave. He was the eldest child of Earnest O’Neal, a farmer, and Ann Scales, a domestic. In the first years of his life, O'Neal was surrounded by his extended family on his grandfather’s farm, "picking cotton and corn in his grandfather’s fields." He also sold and delivered newspapers.


College years

Their family fortunes improved when Stanley’s father landed a job at the General Motors (GM) factory. O'Neal's father moved his family from
Wedowee, Alabama Wedowee is a town in Randolph County, Alabama, United States. At the 2010 census the population was 823, up from 818 in 2000. The small town is the county seat of Randolph County. It was initially incorporated in 1836, but its charter lapsed by th ...
, to
Atlanta Atlanta ( ) is the capital and most populous city of the U.S. state of Georgia. It is the seat of Fulton County, the most populous county in Georgia, but its territory falls in both Fulton and DeKalb counties. With a population of 498,715 ...
, where he worked on a General Motors
assembly line An assembly line is a manufacturing process (often called a ''progressive assembly'') in which parts (usually interchangeable parts) are added as the semi-finished assembly moves from workstation to workstation where the parts are added in se ...
. Stan O'Neal also worked briefly on GM's assembly line as a teenager under a work-study program offered by the General Motors Institute (later known as
Kettering University Kettering University is a private university in Flint, Michigan. It offers Bachelor of Science, bachelor of science and master's degree, master’s degrees in Science, technology, engineering, and mathematics, STEM (science, technology, engineeri ...
), where he gained a degree in industrial administration in 1974. GM later provided O'Neal a scholarship to attend Harvard Business School, where he attained his
MBA A Master of Business Administration (MBA; also Master's in Business Administration) is a postgraduate degree focused on business administration. The core courses in an MBA program cover various areas of business administration such as accounti ...
in 1978 and later rejoined GM as a Treasury Analyst.How Stan O'Neal went from the production line to the front line of investment banking
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Career

O'Neal initially worked as an analyst for General Motors; within two years he was a director in the treasury division.


Merrill Lynch

In 1986, O'Neal joined Merrill Lynch and, by the early 1990s, he was running Merrill's leveraged finance division. After spells as global head of capital markets and co-head of the corporate and institutional client group, he spent two years as
CFO The chief financial officer (CFO) is an officer of a company or organization that is assigned the primary responsibility for managing the company's finances, including financial planning, management of financial risks, record-keeping, and financ ...
from 1998 to 2000. In 2000, he was appointed president of the U.S. Private Client Group, the first executive of the division that oversees Merrill's brokerage who had not himself been a broker. O'Neal led massive layoffs within the division. O'Neal became president of the firm in 2001 in a palace intrigue that eventually led to the early ouster of his predecessor and one-time mentor David Komansky. By 2003, he was CEO and chairman. O'Neal was one of the first African Americans to hold such a high position on Wall Street. He earned $48 million in 2006 and $46 million in 2007. One of his first moves as CEO was to dismiss his number two executive, executive vice chairman Thomas H. Patrick, Sr., and afterward Arshad R. Zakaria, who headed institutional banking and securities. Originally there had been a deal where Patrick and Arshad R. Zakaria would support O'Neal's promotion to CEO, and in return Zakaria would be appointed president. Once O'Neal became CEO, however, he refused to continue this "backroom dealing".The Blundering Herd
, Vanity Fair, November 2010
As CEO, O'Neal attempted to get rid of the 'Mother Merrill' culture of
job security Job security is the probability that an individual will keep their job; a job with a high level of security is such that a person with the job would have a small chance of losing it. Many factors threaten job security: globalization, outsourcing ...
, arguing that it promoted
cronyism Cronyism is the spoils system practice of Impartiality, partiality in awarding jobs and other advantages to friends or trusted colleagues, especially in politics and between politicians and supportive organizations. For example, cronyism occurs ...
instead of merit. He also wanted to transform Merrill into a trading powerhouse, and to beat Goldman Sachs at its own game. After the departure of Chris Ricciardi in 2006, O'Neal hired Osman Semerci as Global Head of Fixed Income, on the advice of trading and investment banking head Dow Kim and COO Ahmass Fakahany. Semerci continued the push into the
subprime mortgage In finance, subprime lending (also referred to as near-prime, subpar, non-prime, and second-chance lending) is the provision of loans to people in the United States who may have difficulty maintaining the repayment schedule. Historically, subpri ...
-backed CDO market, and grew the firm's position from $5-$6 billion worth of exposure to $55 billion in under one year, while firing respected trader Jeff Kronthal and demoting risk manager John Breit, both of whom had warned against too much exposure to CDOs. Merrill was one of the top CDO underwriters of the boom era, a plan that initially brought huge bonuses to Merrill until the markets turned.''Crash of the Titans'', Greg Farrell, Crown Business, 2010 According to the then-president of Merrill, Greg Fleming, the dismissal of Kronthal in July 2006 was the day Merrill Lynch’s fate was sealed, otherwise the firm may have "avoided the subprime problems that would soon bring Wall Street to its knees. After that date, Merrill was doomed to make the same mistakes as its competitors." O'Neal was regarded as out of touch as the market changed and Merrill steered towards trouble, as he had "become isolated from his own firm. He had no idea that key risk managers had been pushed aside or that the people he had put in important positions were out of their depth". O'Neal was described as a manager who "had never been the kind of C.E.O. who walked the trading floor. By 2006, he was so divorced from his own firm that he failed to appreciate the utter lunacy of Semerci’s desire to clean house. Did he really think Semerci could get rid of Merrill’s most experienced mortgage traders and not harm the mortgage desk? Sadly, it seems that O’Neal didn’t think about it at all." "At the same time Goldman executives were canceling vacations to deal with the burgeoning subprime crisis, O’Neal was often on the golf course, playing round after round by himself", in fact six months before
Bear Stearns The Bear Stearns Companies, Inc. was a New York-based global investment bank, securities trading and brokerage firm that failed in 2008 as part of the global financial crisis and recession, and was subsequently sold to JPMorgan Chase. The comp ...
nearly collapsed Merrill added tens of billions of risky securities to its balance sheet while Goldman moved to reduce exposure. During August and September 2007, as the subprime mortgage crisis swept through the global financial market, Merrill Lynch announced losses of $8 billion. O'Neal finally realized the huge exposure that Merrill had to subprime mortgage-backed CDOs, and that the firm would have to be sold in order to survive.Portfolio's Worst American CEOs of All Time
18, Stanley O'Neal
As the crisis worsened, O'Neal approached
Bank of America The Bank of America Corporation (often abbreviated BofA or BoA) is an American multinational investment bank and financial services holding company headquartered at the Bank of America Corporate Center in Charlotte, North Carolina. The bank ...
and
Wachovia Bank Wachovia was a diversified financial services company based in Charlotte, North Carolina. Before its acquisition by Wells Fargo and Company in 2008, Wachovia was the fourth-largest bank holding company in the United States, based on total asset ...
about a possible merger, without first obtaining the approval of Merrill's Board of Directors, which led to his ouster. On October 30, 2007 O'Neal resigned as CEO. He left with a severance package including Merrill stock and options worth $161.5 million on top of the $91.4 million in total compensation he earned in 2006.


Post-resignation

The board hired John Thain from
NYSE Euronext NYSE Euronext, Inc. was a transatlantic multinational financial services corporation that operated multiple securities exchanges, including the New York Stock Exchange, Euronext and NYSE Arca (formerly known as ArcaEx). NYSE merged with Archi ...
to replace O'Neal as chairman and CEO, believing that Thain could save the business, however the markets and the firm continued to deteriorate in 2008. Thain was forced to merge Merrill with Bank of America in September 2008, the weekend before
Lehman Brothers Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. ( ) was an American global financial services firm founded in 1847. Before filing for bankruptcy in 2008, Lehman was the fourth-largest investment bank in the United States (behind Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, a ...
filed for bankruptcy. On January 18, 2008, O'Neal was named to the board of directors of Alcoa. O'Neal is said to have an "abrasive" personality. When Thain arrived at Merrill he scrapped O'Neal's practice of having the security guards always hold an entire elevator bank open exclusively for him. CNBC includes O'Neal in their list of "Worst American CEOs of All Time". The New York Times Magazine on April 18, 2010 described O'Neal as one of the "feckless dolts" who helped precipitate the financial crisis of 2007. During the final hearings prior to the firm's merger with Bank of America, numerous people – including a founder's son, Win Smith – laid the blame on O'Neal for the firm's downfall and loss of independence.


Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission

On March 11 of 2016, a release of documents by the National Archives revealed that the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission had recommended that O'Neal be prosecuted for multiple crimes in connection with his activities as CEO of Merrill Lynch during the lead up to the sub-prime crisis. No formal legal action has resulted, however.


References


External links


"Blundering Herd"
by Bethany McLean and Joe Nocera, Nov 2010 Vanity Fair pg 179
John Cassidy, "Subprime Suspect," ''The New Yorker'', March 31, 2008
(detailed online abstract)



{{DEFAULTSORT:Oneal, Stanley Living people People from Roanoke, Alabama African-American business executives American business executives American chief executives of financial services companies General Motors former executives Harvard Business School alumni Kettering University alumni Merrill (company) people 1951 births People from New York (state) 21st-century African-American people 20th-century African-American people