John Thain’s Top Ten Greatest Moments

Zachary Roth
1/23/2009

If there’s one corporate honcho who’s emerging as the poster boy for all the varied Wall Street sins that the financial crisis has exposed — not just greed, but callousness, obliviousness and general incompetence — its Merrill Lynch’s former CEO John Thain.

Over the last few days, the revelations about Thain’s mismanagement of Merrill have been coming thick and fast — culminating with his ouster yesterday as an executive at Bank of America, which bought Merrill at the height of the financial crisis last September.

Thain, a top John McCain backer who was tipped as a candidate for a White House post had the Arizona senator won the presidency — has amassed quite a record in his short time at Merrill. Lavish personal spending, absentee leadership, bonuses for billions in losses — it’s almost been too much to keep track of.

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