Maggie's Farm

As a former broker for Merrill Lynch including the years of transition to include the crowning of Stan O'Neill I was at minimum an observer of the coronation.

But beyond Stan O'Neill and his ethics is the corporate ethics of Merrill Lynch.
Perhaps there are new readers to MF who are not aware of my life's prism. I give you an abbreviated resume...CIA, 10yrs, IBM 4 yrs, Shearson Lehman Brothers merging with Smith Barney for 10 yrs and Merrill Lynch also as a broker for 3 years.. So I have some perspective on the good, the bad, and the ugly..(sorry)

Merrill Lynch was by far and away THE MOST UNETHICAL company I ever worked for. Without going into details let me give you the limn of ML on one program they ran for my area of brokerage. It involved bring in "new money" which I and many others understood to mean money from new sources, new clients.
Well the way they set it up it was soon discovered by some that by data mining the client based one could "predict when existing clients would deposit "new money". ML counted that as "new money"

When in a meeting the Senior VP was told that this practice was going on his response was that he didn't care how the numbers were produces ,just give him the good numbers...I watched for three or four months as a few broker walked out with monthly bonuses of 6-10k , above their other compensation....
I decided to take it to such an absurd level that this data mining would have to become an issue. When I started "working the system" I set new records, big numbers, big bonuses..months and months went by..but then I got called into the big guys office and told to cool it...I asked if he was initiating this "cool it" with others who by now numbered several dozen, his answer was "no", just you. I didn't back down and it pissed them off. Too bad I said to myself cause by that time I didn't need them anymore, although more is always nice ...but you've got to look at yourself and live with yourself.

When the awards dinner came around I was to be awarded the BIG BULL for bringing in the most "new money" but I feigned illness because I wasn't gonna be held up as a paragon of "good work" when it was a fraud. It went on until I got callled in again...this time I asked if I could just write a term paper and just let it all go ....they didn't see the humor.

Merrill was known as a militaristic culture, but what I encountered had nothing to do with honor,duty or any of the characteristics that produce our wonderful military...It was a sewer.

For those who didn't follow what Stan O'Neill attempted in the dark of night , behind the backs of the board of directors, was to have Wachovia buy Merrill which would have tripped a clause in O'Neils contract enriching him by 250 million dollars. It was exposed and he was gone that afternoon.

Merrill Lynch in my experience was a sick place to work.