Wasn't that nice of him? The morally challenged helicopter CEO somehow saw the light after Andrew Cuomo announced his "shock" when hearing of the demand.
The chief executives of Morgan Stanley and Merrill Lynch & Co. will forgo their customary bonuses for 2008, as their firms seek to avoid public-relations fiascos.There is still no word out of Citigroup to date so maybe Robert Rubin working behind the scenes to insist that they all forgo bonuses. Uh huh, right. At a very minimum, Obama should not hire anyone from any company that is receiving bailout money and still paying bonuses.
The online edition of The Wall Street Journal, citing unnamed sources, reported Monday that Morgan Stanley's John Mack decided to forgo his bonus because it "would send the wrong message." The report noted that Morgan Stanley has accepted $10 billion from the U.S. government in return for an ownership stake, as it and other Wall Street firms struggle to cope with the economic downturn.
Merrill Lynch's John Thain, the Journal reported, had originally lobbied Merrill's board for a bonus between $5 million and $10 million, saying that his shepherding of the firm into a merger with Bank of America Corp. in September saved it from a worse fate.
However, that prompted New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo to announce that such a bonus would be "unjustified."
Merrill announced late Monday that Thain will not get a bonus for 2008. In addition, Merrill's other four top executives, including Gregory Fleming and Robert McCann, will also go without bonuses, the firm said in a statement.
