I don't know if Stan O'Neal is the right man for the job right now. In my opinion, he should have left with the others. However, I still feel that overall the board at Merrill is quite capable of turning the company around, hopefully sooner rather than later. One of the Knowledge Maps from NewsVisual http://www.newsvisual.com/newsvisual/2007/10/experience-on-m.html demonstrates just how experienced they are.

Stan O'Neil has done nothing since coming on board to increase revenue
His claim to fame is, ruthless cost cutting wich resulted in actually loosing prime talent and leaving Merrill in sorry shape when the market did rebound.
He is widely disliked by employees who find him cold and aloof outsider to the proud culture of the company.
He departure is long overdue

I have worked at ML for over 35 years. Right now I am a disabled nonpaid employee. This latest catastrophe is one of a long line of situations under at least 4 Chairmen where ML came to the party late, stayed too long, and got jailed for public drunkenness. Who suffers for this poor management? Well, it is never the Chairman. He makes his multi-millions and lays off a multitude of underlings/employees, most of whom had nothing to do with the debacle. Doesn't a Chairman set the directions of a corporation with final responsiblity for the specific areas of business he approves? Well, it seems that ML Chairmen, like Enron Chairmen to name just one of many other examples, are exempt from taking any serious responsiblities for their approvals of directions their companies take. It was always frustrating to have to work for a company that exempted its chairman from responsiblity taking and it is no less frustrating to watch this happen from afar. Fire Stan with a public kick in the butt out the door.

The share price is telling us a lot. The culture now in place is wrotten and O'Neil has purged his way to the top. I work at ML and have met him, a very cold eyed individual, no human warmth. This engenders no loyalty, look at the all the great guys pushed out. He has seriously seriously damaged the firm and everyone knows that if yiu get too close you will be purged at some point, you just cannot run a successful firm like this. It is a bit like Stalin in the Kremlin in the 30's, who knows who is next in the gulag, you have to ask also what culture this engenders further down the line. There was a single minded and deadly ruthless climb to the top and a willingness to use and dispose of people. This is seen, known and creates fear and attracts unsuitable people to pay the high stakes game with a person who seems to lack normal feelings. Also why is he Chairman, CEO and President, an unbelievable accumulation of power. Absolute power like this is considered dangerous in politics but OK in business, why do we assume that we do not get dysfunctional dicatorships in companies as well. Why has the board allowed this to happen ? ML is now an undervalued asset, there needs to be urgent change at the top, given the accumulation of power on one man a takeover is probably the only way .