Firing Thain is not enough - Lewis needs to be fired and Thain has to return all bonus payments

Thain (ex Goldman CEO) was fired today after he had obviously given misleading information about Merrill's risk exposures. That needs to be prosecuted since taxpayers are picking up that bill. He is so unbelievable greedy and unethical that he was even fighting for a 10 million bonus at the end of last year. Outrages is also that he spends in a bankrupt bank who only survives with massive taxpayer aid 1,2 mio last month for the refurbishment of his office space - he must be out of his freaking mind but Lewis let him do that and was so stupid to buy Merrill at a premium although at current BAC stock prices that was not a real premium unless you sold them right away. He acquired Coutrywide and Merrill and destroyed 10's of billions and still has his job - what else can he make wrong to prove he is not fit for the job. That is true for most executives at wall street as reality proves.

Merrill Ex-CEO Thain Agrees to Leave Bank of America (Update3)

By Josh Fineman and David Mildenberg

Jan. 22 (Bloomberg) -- John Thain, who engineered the sale of 95-year-old Merrill Lynch & Co. to Bank of America Corp. in September, was ousted after Merrill’s $15.4 billion loss forced the lender to seek more money from the U.S. government.

Thain, 53, “agreed his situation was not working out and that he should resign,” Bank of America spokesman Robert Stickler said in an e-mail today. His exit ends Thain’s tenure with the Charlotte, North Carolina-based bank less than a month after Merrill’s takeover was completed.

Thain negotiated the sale with Bank of America Chief Executive Officer Kenneth Lewis, 61, whose credibility was undercut when the brokerage reported a record fourth-quarter deficit. Lewis, who considered backing out of the deal when he learned of the extent of Merrill’s losses last month, went ahead at the insistence of U.S. regulators who provided a new $138 billion aid package.

Lewis “is by no means in his job in any secure way,” Gary Townsend, president of Hill-Townsend Capital LLC in Chevy Chase, Maryland, said in a Bloomberg Radio interview. “Ken Lewis has his issues.”

Shares of Bank of America, down 53 percent this year through yesterday, slid 8 percent to $6.16 as of 2:09 p.m. in New York Stock Exchange composite trading.

Lehman Collapse

Thain, who had headed Bank of America’s wealth management and corporate and investment banking divisions, will be succeeded by General Counsel Brian Moynihan, the bank said in a statement. Moynihan, 49, ran global corporate and investment banking at Bank of America prior to the Merrill takeover, and had also served as president of global wealth and investment management.

Senior Merrill executives Robert McCann and Greg Fleming resigned less than a week after the transaction was completed on Jan. 1.

Trading chief Tom Montag, 52, who was hired by Thain from Goldman Sachs Group Inc., will stay with the company, according to Stickler, the Bank of America spokesman. Montag will continue to run global markets, and will now report to Lewis and be a member of the team that sets company strategy.