NYSE's Thain Will Become CEO Of Merrill (MER, C, GS, NYX)

The New York Post has reported that NYSE (NYSE:NYX) CEO John Thain will be made the new head of Merrill Lynch (NYSE:MER). The announcement is expeted after the close.   This also follows reports from CNBC today.

Thain has also been a hopeful replacement for Citigroup (NYSE:C) as well, although it is no secret as why Thain would choose Merrill Lynch of Citigroup.  Anyone taking over the helm at Citigroup will be forced to announce thousands of layoffs across most divisions of the company, and they will be forced to evaluate the entire structure of a financial supermarket business model that Wall Street really hates.  Would you like to step in and announce thousands of layoffs across the board AND that you are taking a hatchet to the entire company?

At Merrill Lynch, Thain can merely migrate some of his hat tricks from the old Goldman Sachs (NYSE:GS) model, and migrate the inner workings of the NYSE.  Who cares if you have to be the one to kill a bunch of bond and derivative guys anyway.  They already know they are dead.

Douglas A. McIntyre