Thain to head investment banking wealth at BofA

John Thain, the Merrill Lynch & Co Inc chief executive who engineered the firm's sale to Bank of America Corp, will head investment banking, securities and wealth management at the new company -- at least for now.

But analysts don't expect Thain, who has now led two major Wall Street companies, to remain in his new job for long. They expect him to aim to succeed Bank of America (BAC.N: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) Chief Executive Ken Lewis, 61, or seek a CEO job elsewhere.

"The fact is that he's a CEO -- he's not going to stay long," said Greg Donaldson, director of portfolio strategy at Donaldson Capital Management in Evansville, Indiana.

Thain, 53, was previously CEO at NYSE Euronext Inc (NYX.N: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) and before that was president and chief operating officer at Goldman Sachs Group Inc (GS.N: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz).

A Merrill (MER.N: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) spokeswoman declined comment on the announcement on Thursday.

Jim Mahoney, a spokesman for Bank of America, said the bank expects Thain to be a "strong contributor" to the executive management team. "The issue of succession was not central to his conversations with (CEO Ken) Lewis," he added.

Thain joined Merrill in December after the ouster of former CEO Stan O'Neal and was brought in to repair the financial service group after it wrote down $8.4 billion in soured mortgage securities in the third quarter of last year.

He has presided over substantial write-downs. Merrill's total tally is over $20 billion for this year, including a $5.7 billion write-down in the third quarter that was announced in July. Merrill's troubles stem from aggressive risk-taking in complex securities during O'Neal's tenure as CEO. .

http://www.reuters.com/article/americasMergersNews/

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Thain to head investment banking wealth at BofA