As expected, Bank of America has announced it’s management restructuring to lead the bank after it buys Merrill Lynch.
Here are the winners and losers from the reorg.
Winner: Merrill Lynch Chief Executive John Thain will be president of the businesses. He gets a larger role. But don’t expect him to last. Thain is “Mr Fixit.” He’ll stick around long enough to get this thing running but is probably already looking for his next gig.
Winner: David Darnell holds his job as president of global commercial banking at BofA.
Winner: Bob McCann, who chaffed after being put under the supervision of Greg Fleming, has shucked off that extra layer of management and will be head of the combined financial adviser organization. Big score for the baron of the brokers.
Winner: Cathy Bessant, who works from Charlotte for BofA, will be head of global product solutions at BofA combined companies..
Winner/Loser: Tom Montag basically gets a slightly expanded version of his role as global head of sales and trading at Merrill Lynch. But this is the group that just got slashed with job cuts.
Loser/Winner: Peter Kraus, brought in by Thain as executive vice president of global strategy at Merrill Lynch, is leaving/being forced out. But he made tens of millions for spending a year at Merrill, so it’s hard to call that a total loss.
Loser: Keith Banks lost his job to Bob McCann. He was president of global wealth and investment management at BofA. Now he will head of U.S. Trust and Columbia Management.
Loser: Greg Fleming will head global corporate and investment banking, which will include commercial banking. This is a step down from his role as president and chief operating officer of Merrill Lynch. He’s basically had supervision of Merrill’s brokerage business stripped away from him. There are rumblings that he’s already looking for an exit.
