Merrill Lynch CEO Biggest Casualty To Date

The biggest fly to be swatted so far by the struggling real estate market is the CEO of Merrill Lynch who finally stepped down on October 30th to clear way to a new path for Merrill Lynch. Stanley O’Neal had little choice after Merrill Lynch lost nearly $8 billion dollars during the third quarter of the 2007 calendar year.

It really doesn’t matter what industry you are in or how big your company is, if you are losing that much money with your business then obviously some changes are going to need to be made and heads are going to roll. There have already been changes in other leadership roles to help stop the bleeding that has been going on with the traditionally dominant company in the past. In this case it is starting from the top and will trickle down as Merrill Lynch looks to rebound after such a difficult struggle.

Apparently O’Neal pushed for a merger with Wachovia recently and that helped to accelerate he exit out of the door from the board members of Merrill Lynch. What is sad for companies like Merrill Lynch and their employees is that things do not look like there will get better for the subprime real estate market.