From the category archives:

Stanley O’Neal

Outrage of the Week: When Subprime CEOs Dissemble Before Congress

March 9, 2008

Never in modern business has so much been given to so few for such colossally failed results. In just five years, these three CEOs made more than $460 million while leading their companies into the greatest losses in their history. One of them, Charles O. Prince of Citigroup, even got a bonus of $10 million, [...]

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Outrage of the Week: The Directors Who Slumbered While Merrill Lynch Steered into its Subprime Iceberg

January 18, 2008

The fact that Merrill’s risk committee did not function shows that this company was governed by a board that failed utterly in its duty to investors. The magnitude of the losses was staggering on its own: nearly $10 billion for the final quarter of 2007. That was on top of the $2.3 billion loss for [...]

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Time for Tough Questions about Subprime Solutions -and their Potential Dangers

January 15, 2008

When the misguided decisions of Wall Street can so radically alter the life and fate of every Main Street in America, it is time for Washington to weigh in, big-time. Our comments about the Great American Boardroom Bailout Sweepstakes caught the attention of the ever-watchful Marketbeat column at the Wall Street Journal yesterday. We get [...]

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When Wall Street Gods Come Crashing Down from the Subprime Heavens

December 20, 2007

Declining bonuses this year? How about boards showing a little spine and demanding that executives give back a chunk of the oversized paychecks that were awarded in the years when these ill-fated decisions were being made. It’s dangerous to be walking around Wall Street these days. You never quite know when another company will hit [...]

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Outrage of the Week: Subprime Hypocrites in Retreat

December 7, 2007

The real purpose behind the Bush Administration’s plan is not to help the victims of the subprime turmoil, but rather the perpetrators of the economic crime who unleashed it in the first place. To justify their out-of-this-world bonuses, the titans of Wall Street and the kings of the home lending business, like Countrywide Financial’s Angelo [...]

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Falling Subprime Titans Raise Issue of Boardroom Vigilance…Again

November 5, 2007

Boards don’t just anoint an emperor CEO and remain a hapless bystander of events. Their job is to assess and oversee issues of risk, as well as the CEO’s performance. First it was Warren Spector, co-president of Bear Stearns. Next it was Merrill Lynch’s E. Stanley O’Neal. Yesterday it was Charles O. Prince of Citigoup. [...]

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Change Needed for Merrill Lynch’s Board, Too

October 31, 2007

We’re batting 1000 so far in the prediction department regarding recent developments at Merrill Lynch. Now that the board has shown former CEO E. Stanley O’Neal the door, it needs to do some retooling itself, especially when it comes to its oversight culture, which was pretty limp in supervising Mr. O’Neal.

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Outrage of the Week: Merrill Lynch’s Billion Dollar Boardroom Blunders

October 26, 2007

It takes something of a rare talent to pull off losses that soar into the billions just after reassuring the market and be paid $48 million for the privilege He had a pretty much handpicked board and was paid something close to a king’s ransom in compensation. No one could argue that the company was [...]

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