Details of Merrill Lynch CEO golden parachute

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Merrill Lynch's directors may be weighing E. Stanley O'Neal's future, but
one thing is already guaranteed: a payday of at least $159 million if he
steps down.

Mr. O'Neal, the company's chairman and chief executive, is entitled to $30
million in retirement benefits as well as $129 million in stock and option
holdings, according to an analysis by James F. Reda & Associates using
yesterday's share price of $66.09. That would be on top of the roughly $160
million he took home in his nearly five years on the job.

Under Mr. O'Neal, Merrill moved aggressively into lucrative businesses like
the packaging of subprime mortgages and other complex debt securities. That
led to a string of blow-out quarters - and blow-out paydays. Last year, Mr.
O'Neal's $46.4 million pay package made him Wall Street's second-highest
paid chief executive, behind Lloyd C. Blankfein of Goldman Sachs, who was
paid $54.3 million, according to Equilar research.

But those big bets appeared to go bust this week. Merrill announced an $8.4
billion write-down, raising questions about whether Mr. O'Neal will keep his
job. One thing that he surely will hold onto, though, are the giant
paychecks he has collected.

"I lay the blame at the foot of the board," Frederick E. Rowe Jr., a money
manager and president of Investors for Director Accountability. "He was paid
a tremendous amount of money to create a loss that is mind-boggling, and he
obviously took risks that should never have been taken."

It is unclear whether Mr. O'Neal will resign. But his $159 million exit
package may not look all that egregious when compared with those of other
executives.

At Pfizer, for example, Henry A. McKinnell Jr. collected a $200 million exit
package last year. At Morgan Stanley, Phillip J. Purcell walked out with
$114 million in 2005.

At Merrill, Mr. O'Neal works without a severance contract and would be
expected to forfeit any unvested options. But the Merrill proxy says the
compensation committee has "discretion" to award severance benefits.

Mr. O'Neal would walk away with an even bigger pay package if he left after
a merger - a potential $274 million payout. That made the Wachovia offer
personally lucrative.

On Wall Street, of course, bad news can be transformed into good with the
same type of alchemy that changed subprime mortgages into investment-grade
securities. Even as Mr. O'Neal came under fire yesterday, investors bid up
Merrill's stock by $5.19. That gave Mr. O'Neal a paper gain of $16 million.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/27/business/27payout.html?_r=1&ex=1351137600&en=221a32b5fb43674c&ei=5090&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss&oref=slogin

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