Merrill Lynch and Citigroup Face Uncertain Futures

When 2007 began, Merrill Lynch and Citigroup were coming off impressive years. With strong, well-respected leadership and profits growing consistently, the financial behemoths looked positioned to continue their upward trajectory with no signs of weakness or potential pitfalls in the future. Boy how times can and have changed at both Wall Street giants as Merrill Lynch forced its CEO Stan O'Neal and Citigroup pushed its Chairman/CEO Charles Prince out the door within seventy-two hours of each other. In modern financial history, never have two of the world's largest financial organizations changed leadership so close to each other.

The fact that the executive boards at both Merrill Lynch and Citigroup were meeting or had scheduled a meeting to discuss the top position belies the desperateness of the situation as they looked to calm investor fears and to make tough decisions that would be in the best interests of their companies. But both executive teams had their decisions made for them, at least publicly, as Stan O'Neal and Charles Prince resigned or retired avoiding the appearance of being fired. I am not sure what the difference is between a forced resignation or retirement and being fired but for some reason it is and therefore Robert Rubin woke up as chairman of Citigroup this morning and Merrill Lynch has appointed two executives to run their day to day operations.