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

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.

Until the many recent revelations on the causes of our financial institutions almost total capitulation when faced with difficult trading conditions, many, including myself, held those running these businesses in great respect bordering on awe, believing them to be superior to most other mortals. This conviction was reinforced by the fact that they were paid large basic salaries, were given huge annual bonuses almost as a matter of course, had pension funds of unimaginative magnitude, and were beneficiaries of a multitude of perks from chauffeured limousines, almost limitless expenses through to personal use of corporate aircraft. If these people were not outstanding business leaders surely the supposedly 'wise' members of the Remuneration Committees of these companies would not be irresponsible enough to rewards them so extravagantly?

Wrong. It is quite evident from this outstanding book on the last desperate efforts of Merrill Lynch to avoid the ignominy of 'going down the tube' and the ill-conceived and clumsy efforts of The Bank of America when buying what was considered to be a 'trophy purchase' without exercising much care and due diligence, at a price that was at a considerable premium over its real value, that the senior executives of both companies were 'thrashing' around in the dark, displaying all the signs of 'lemming' management and not living up to the level of expertise that they were being paid for.

Greg Farrell's account of these manic times is excellent. Although fairly long in terms of pages, it holds ones interest throughout and gives both the uninitiated and more financially experienced reader, a 'fly-on-the-wall' perspective into the dire repercussions of banks operating 'casino' type operations on their own accounts, and throwing the dice on the 'Credit Derivatives' Table especially as it transpires they had little or no appreciation of the downsides.

A really good book which I believe is Mr Farrell's first and it is hoped not his last.

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

This is a well written portrait of how Merrill Lynch collapse. There are many explanations but the one that stands out in reading this is how it is possible for a CEO not to know where the increased earnings are coming from. The total failure of risk management is remarkable. It shows that O'Neil was so blinded by growing Merrill and his own bonus that he did not pay attention.

Thane came in to try to save the company he seemed to lack the ability to see what was happening. It all becomes a tragic story. One wonders if there is not a need for a separate disclosure statement by the chief risk officer of a firm certifying the bonuses of all senior employees before a board approves bonuses.

I worked in a large corporation for many years and I was impressed how real the dialogue was. I could hear the players speaking in the same manner.

The last point is how poorly Bank of America was managed. I was amazed.

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!

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.

I read an excellent review in Salon a few weeks ago (link below) and picked up the book shortly after. The book lived up to its promise, and then some.

I have to say that when I was younger, I often found myself jealous of people I knew who worked on The Street. But time, perspective and now this book have pretty much wiped all that away.

[...]

Generally well written and I was able to read it in about two days but having read other books on the topic I would recommend All the Devils are Here over Crash of the Titans. My biggest pet peeves are two fold: First, the writer, while retelling John Thain's career in extremely heroic tones, completely fails to cover Thain's betrayal of Corzine. This is unforgivable, especially as we spend 3 pages reading about Thain's college years and what a genial genius he was. Second, the book makes some basic mistakes re capital markets/MBAs/etc. This is surprising since the writer has been a reporter covering this beat for over 20 years.

I'm a fiction guy. You know, Tom Clancy in the old days, Daniel Silva today, the books that grab you on page four and don't turn loose. In the interest of full disclosure I've been in the banking business for over forty-five years, twenty as a federal regulator, so that might create a special interest in this book, but I live in an area that consensus says is the worst economic diasaster in the country and I often wonder - - "how can so many incredibly bright people who had access to the best forecasting, the best economic data, make billion dollar bets on the economy continuing its rocket-like ascent?" When you read this book you'll see CEO's, boards of directors populated by more CEO's and lifetime executives in the biggest investment banks, commercial banks and government totally and completely miss the signs of what was to come in the housing mortgage market, i.e., not just the diaster of sub-prime lending but that millions of "credit good" borrowers would walk from their homes under some ill-concieved and morally invalid idea that it never was a home, it was just an investment that went bad. And there are those who will say that the subjects of this book were driven by the greed factor that created these huge postions in CDO's that brought down Bear, Stearns and Lehman Bros., but this book does an excellent job of showing that it was actually ego and need for absolute control that was the demon. ML doesn't know it's broke and wants $30 a share, BofA doesn't know ML is broke and offers $29 a share. Heck, BofA, driven by the same ego, didn't even know IT was making other diastrous decisions that would render it crippled and . . . . but then that's another story now isn't it.

Really enjoyed this book. I raced through it as if it were a murder mystery--no doubt a mistake, but it was hard to put down. I agree with almost every nitpick in the previous reviews. Yes, a little repetition. Yes, I wish Farrell would remember to switch to past perfect. Yes, he could have used a bit more about how those last losses came roaring in.

But the fact remains that I, who know little of finance or Wall Street, enjoyed the book immensely. I won't remember the names, possibly, but the impression of the world they live in is very vivid and probably indelible. One reviewer called it a page-turner. I'll second that, and add--a page-turner with an index! Farrell is very good about helping the reader to keep the actors straight, but now and then, there's nothing like an index. "Who's this guy? Oh, yeah, now I remember."