Crash of the Titans: Greed, Hubris, the Fall of Merrill Lynch, and the Near-Collapse of Bank of America

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		Crash of the Titans: Greed, Hubris, the Fall of Merrill Lynch, and the Near-Collapse of Bank of America
		Crash of the Titans: Greed, Hubris, the Fall of Merrill Lynch, and the Near-Collapse of Bank of America

The intimate, fly-on-the wall tale of the decline and fall of an America icon
 
With one notable exception, the firms that make up what we know as Wall Street have always been part of an inbred, insular culture that most people only vaguely understand. The exception was Merrill Lynch, a firm that revolutionized the stock market by bringing Wall Street to Main Street, setting up offices in far-flung cities and towns long ignored by the giants of finance. With its “thundering herd” of financial advisers, perhaps no other business, whether in financial services or elsewhere, so epitomized the American spirit. Merrill Lynch was not only “bullish on America,” it was a big reason why so many average Americans were able to grow wealthy by investing in the stock market. 

Merrill Lynch was an icon. Its sudden decline, collapse, and sale to Bank of America was a shock. How did it happen? Why did it happen? And what does this story of greed, hubris, and incompetence tell us about the culture of Wall Street that continues to this day even though it came close to destroying the American economy? A culture in which the CEO of a firm losing $28 billion pushes hard to be paid a $25 million bonus. A culture in which two Merrill Lynch executives are guaranteed bonuses of $30 million and $40 million for four months’ work, even while the firm is struggling to reduce its losses by firing thousands of employees.

Based on unparalleled sources at both Merrill Lynch and Bank of America, Greg Farrell’s Crash of the Titans is a Shakespearean saga of three flawed masters of the universe. E. Stanley O’Neal, whose inspiring rise from the segregated South to the corner office of Merrill Lynch—where he engineered a successful turnaround—was undone by his belief that a smooth-talking salesman could handle one of the most difficult jobs on Wall Street. Because he enjoyed O’Neal’s support, this executive was allowed to build up an astonishing $30 billion position in CDOs on the firm’s balance sheet, at a time when all other Wall Street firms were desperately trying to exit the business. After O’Neal comes John Thain, the cerebral, MIT-educated technocrat whose rescue of the New York Stock Exchange earned him the nickname “Super Thain.” He was hired to save Merrill Lynch in late 2007, but his belief that the markets would rebound led him to underestimate the depth of Merrill’s problems. Finally, we meet Bank of America CEO Ken Lewis, a street fighter raised barely above the poverty line in rural Georgia, whose “my way or the highway” management style suffers fools more easily than potential rivals, and who made a $50 billion commitment over a September weekend to buy a business he really didn’t understand, thus jeopardizing his own institution. 

The merger itself turns out to be a bizarre combination of cultures that blend like oil and water, where slick Wall Street bankers suddenly find themselves reporting to a cast of characters straight out of the Beverly Hillbillies. BofA’s inbred culture, which perceived New York banks its enemies, was based on loyalty and a good-ol’-boy network in which competence played second fiddle to blind obedience.

Crash of the Titans is a financial thriller that puts you in the theater as the historic events of the financial crisis unfold and people responsible for billion of dollars of other people’s money gamble recklessly to enhance their power and their paychecks or to save their own skins. Its wealth of never-before-revealed information and focus on two icons of corporate America make it the book that puts together all the pieces of the Wall Street disaster.

网友对Crash of the Titans: Greed, Hubris, the Fall of Merrill Lynch, and the Near-Collapse of Bank of America的评论

This book doesn't try to explain the definition of a CDO or how the housing bubble built, popped, etc like every other book on the crisis does

This book assumes you have read a few other books on the crisis & have the basic knowledge of the housing market Boom & Bust and how it happened and what caused it... so if you are looking for an Introductory Book on the 2007 crisis there are lots of others that would be much better

However, if you want to know what went into some of the behind the scenes decisions that brought Merrill Lynch to the brink on non-existence and the factors that lead Bank of America to pay such a huge price for a company that was imploding... this book is great. Goes into the background and personalities of Stan O'Neal, Ken Lewis, John Thain and the other major players and gives a good picture of what each person did to result in the 2008 Merger

Plenty of books have been written on the crisis, What caused it, who is to blame etc. But all of those Books focus on Bear Stearns or Lehman Brothers or Goldman Sachs... and the Merrill/BAC merger is only mentioned in passing. This is the first book I have read that focused on the crisis from Merrill's perspective

If you have any interest in the inner workings of a major Wall Street firm, how certain people make it to the top of a cutthroat, backstabbing business, and how they manage to stay on top; then this is the book you must read. I have read several books about the 2008 financial crisis and this was the most thought provoking, thrilling and enjoyable one of them all. It is jam packed with insightful, unique details that the author has tightly woven into an exceptional page turning narrative.

I first became familiar with the author, Greg Farrell, when he wrote for USA Today covering major white collar crime stories and I was an FBI agent in New York City. I was always amazed at how he could condense a very complicated business story into a few paragraphs and still convey an accurate and comprehensive report. After reading several of his articles I always wondered what Mr. Farrell could do if he was ever given the freedom to write a detailed, lengthy story. Now I know! Mr. Farrell has knocked the cover off the ball, and also the arrogance, overconfidence and hype out of these two financial institutions.

The author often writes about "the smartest person in the room". The irony of this book is that halfway through reading this book, it occurred to me that maybe the "smartest person in the room" was the person writing the book itself. While he does have the benefit of 20/20 hindsight, the Harvard educated, Columbia MBA trained author displays a firm grasp and total understanding of the issues involved in running BoA and Merrill Lynch at a time when both firms had to keep up their earnings to match their competitors.

Mr. Farrell has written an amazing book that not only explains how these titans crashed, but reveals in accurate, factual detail why they crashed. I absolutely loved this book!

So how to review a book with absolutely no redeeming characters? Where the only ones that look remotely ok were only such because they talked to the writer more than the others.

The book itself is a worthy history of Merrill Lynch's last 18 months as independent company and it's rocky merger with Bank of America. It shows the management to be self-centered, myopic and completely incompetent. Amazingly everyone gets out alive. Stan O'Neil gets $160mm. John Thain is the CEO of CIT. Greg Flemming is one of the top executives at Morgan Stanley. Bob McCann similarly positioned at UBS. Ahmass Fakahany the former head of Risk and Co-President is now a NY restauranteur. Even the chief culprit Osman Semerci seems to be the CEO of a $2 billion Hedge Fund in London (Duet). Savings are wiped out. Thousands and thousands of people lose jobs and houses and strangely those at the center of the storm are doing just fine.

The book is a page turner. There are moments of real drama. The firm, the banking business and the economy are all sinking. The key subjects at Merrill and BoA are well profiled. The conflicts and live timeline given a "novel" feel to the storyline. At certain points it feels oddly distant from the events of the day. For example it barely discusses the spring of 2008 which was a time of huge uncertainty. Instead of telling us again how certain people felt I think he could have tied more of what was going on around Merrill at that time. But still good pace throughout.

The book lacks technical detail. Other reviewers have mentioned this. Given it's now 2011 there are probably enough books explaining the "what" of the crisis where perhaps this is the "who". But I'd say this suffers a bit as a result. In talking about Merrill's losses in the fall of 2008 there is scant detail on how it happened and yet this was the biggest loss by far - $18 billion and the CDO positions had already been sold. Michael Lewis showed in "The Big Short" that you can still write a great book and include some good details on what are the investments that when wrong without boring people.

I thought the writer was also a bit soft on Thain. They talked about his expert handling of the LTCM wind down from 1998 but there are famous stories of Goldman front running that unwind from months before that fund crashed. Wouldn't it put Thain's character in a different light to be more skeptical of his role? I would also doubt that he was the key driver of Goldman's mortgage trading in the 1980's.

Secondly he seems overly sympathetic to Greg Fleming. On at least a dozen occasions he talks about the 15 or 16 years that Flemming has put into the firm only to see it blow up. Come on. 16 years is not that long. Mentioning it once or twice is ok but it is not a badge or a special amount of time, particularly when you're making unbelievable amounts of money. Please remember everyone is in it for the money.

His descriptions of Bank of America culture were fascinating. Clearly they had an inferiority complex overlayed with enormous bravado; seeing themselves as outside the New York banking scene and resentful of being seen as less sophisticated being based in Charlotte, North Carolina. They are not a bad bank by any means but clearly different from their major competitors. Given that Countrywide really buried that bank Farrell could have spent some time on it. It really was the Achilles heel that ruined Lewis' career. Ken Lewis probably could have survived the losses and ugly politics on closing the Merrill acquisition if his own bank were in better shape.

In the end, this is a good book about the failure of Merrill Lynch and of how bad Stan O'Neil screwed up (repeatedly). There were colossal errors in judgement and a shocking misunderstanding of risk management. Risk management is 50% systems (which Merrill clearly did not have) and 50% honest dialogues with qualified practitioners which also did not exist. HOPEFULLY something is learned from it. If nothing else O'Neil should be kicked to the curb and stepped on (repeatedly).

An absolutely magnificent story.

It's a tough position for another book on the U.S. financial crisis to be released on November 2, 2010 (Crown Business NY, NY) --- if you have read as many great books about the crisis this year as I have.

Don't be fooled. Don't let the 454 pages of this volume dissuade you from considering this magnificent story from Greg Farrell (correspondent for the Financial Times - BA Harvard and MBA from Columbia).

What Crash of the Titans is, in my opinion, is evidence of simply phenomenal storytelling, supported by a depth and breadth of investigative journalism that is both unique and unparalleled. Farrell is a pro - truly a master story teller. The 454 pages flew by based upon the prowess of Farrell's ability to keep the reader engaged on a page-turning journey. His character development is amazing. The tension, innuendo and intrigue are simply fantastic and lend to the credibility of this work as a truly unique, non-fiction financial thriller for 2010.

In the spirit of full disclosure, I worked at both NationsBank and BofA during my career as a regional manager of a commercial lending group (during the years when BofA was acquired by NB and adopted the Bank of America brand). I was with NB at the time of the acquisition and stayed on for several years thereafter with the BofA logo on my business card. Farrell's ability to capture the "culture clash" that occurred during this merger was uncanny - spot on target.

This book is, in my opinion, an eminently fair characterization of the story and the people. Frankly, John Thain did his best - and his performance could not likely be outperformed by comparably capable Wall Street executives who may have been thrust into the situation Mr. Thain was.

Greg Fleming - wherever you are - you are my hero! I'll work for your team any day. I'm waiting for your call Mr. Fleming.

From the sheer excellence of the story telling, supported by the research and investigative journalism...I rate this work as FIVE STARS.

Buy it. You'll truly enjoy it. This book ranks right up there with the works of Lowenstein, Michael Lewis and Scott Patterson's published in 2010.

Farrell has written a very detailed and insightful overview of the events around Bank of America's purchase of Merrill Lynch. As with many of the books written on the financial crisis it details how ignorance around the basic principles of prudent risk management resulted in catastrophic events. Whether the ignorance was driven by greed, stupidity, or blind faith in the market continually going up (or a combination thereof), becomes almost irrelevant, but this book does a great job of investigating and demonstrating the results that came about as a result of less than ideal decisions. It delves deeply into the psyche and decisions made by O'Neal, Lewis, Thain, Semerci etc and how these eventually played out. The author is also not afraid to assign blame and I found his analysis to be fair and balanced. Farrell has certainly invested a great deal of effort into researching the events and characters, and then moulding these into a coherent and entertaining book. The book has a great amount of detail and information, but flows very well, holding the reader's attention from the first page to the last.

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