Merrill Lynch is believed poised to add to its lengthy list of global heads it has hired and fired over the last decade.

Summer torpor shattered by the sound of distant gunfire. Of what do I speak? The unexpected hostilities in southern Lebanon? Wealthy hedge fund managers stalking grouse on the verdant Scottish moors? Chuck Prince exercising with his personal trainer? Of course not. I am referring to the recent putsch at Merrill Lynch. “Just when I thought it was safe to poke my head above the parapet,” a Lyncher moaned, “I realize I need to don a balaclava.”

SpencerLake has joined HSBC as global head of debt capital markets after 17 years at Merrill Lynch. Lake had only recently been appointed to a newly created role of head of debt capital markets for the Asia-Pacific region at Merrill. He will be based in London and manage HSBC’s 250-strong origination team. He reports to Daniel Palmer, head of global capital markets.

Strength comes from the top. And it is from the tight-knit senior executive group that Stan O’Neal believes Merrill derives much of its strength.

Under Stan O’Neal’s leadership, Merrill is back as a force to be reckoned with in investment banking.

The awards for excellence season is always an interesting time for Euromoney’s journalists. As we consider the relevant merits of different banks and their diverse businesses, there is an opportunity to get to the real heart of what makes a bank tick. To do that, you need to see the leader.

Stan O’Neal’s story is unique in investment banking. Born in Roanake, Alabama (because his home town’s hospital refused to serve African Americans), raised in Wedowee (population 750), he was educated in a schoolhouse built by his grandfather, who was born a slave. O’Neal’s father moved his family from the cotton fields to Atlanta, where he worked on a General Motors assembly line. Stan O’Neal worked there as a teenager but GM spotted his strong intellect and sent him on a scholarship to the GM Institute, where he gained a degree in industrial administration. He then took an MBA in finance at Harvard, graduating in 1978.

Merrill Lynch has worked hard to fill the gaps in its CDO franchise this year and exported significant innovation into Europe.

When Stan O’Neal took over as president and CEO of Merrill Lynch in 2001, the thundering herd of the 1990s was clapped out. O’Neal imposed a ruthless cost-cutting strategy that saved the firm’s independence. Now his rebuilding plans are starting to bear fruit. Can Merrill heed the lessons of the past, but at the same time make it back to the pinnacle of investment banking? Clive Horwood reports.

What lessons did Stan O’Neal learn from the restructuring of Merrill Lynch at the turn of the decade? What are Merrill’s plans in mortgages, private equity and asset management? And what continues to drive Merrill’s CEO forward? O’Neal reveals all to Clive Horwood in his first in-depth interview since becoming the firm’s chairman and CEO.

Merrill Lynch has hired Tim Skeet as a covered bond product specialist reporting to Amir Hoveyda, European head of debt capital markets. He joins Merrill from ABN Amro where he was head of financial institutions origination for Germany and France. He joined the Dutch bank at the start of 2003, before that he held a senior FIG relationship banker role at Barclays Capital. Skeet is a veteran of the debt capital markets and one of the best-known faces in the covered bond sector. He started in the business some 25 years ago at Samuel Montagu.

Richard Longmore, head of EMEA FX sales, has abruptly left Merrill Lynch.

What’s going on at Merrill Lynch? The investment bank has posted impressive overall first-quarter results, as revenues hit the $8 billion mark, but the Latin American debt capital markets desk seems to be lagging.

In this edition, don't miss: Abigail's opinion of Lehman's Board of Directors and of Jeremy Isaacs' realm; her advice to Bank of America on investment banking; the details of HSBC's Studzinski's glam 50th birthday party; and hats off to Rainer Stephan, chairman of Barclays in Germany.

What does Merrill Lynch’s $9.8 billion BlackRock deal mean for the European asset management industry?

Bank of America gets the edge with its acquisition of Financial Labs.

Bank of America is expanding its private banking business by targeting US families worth $50 mln+.

Euromoney’s annual poll of polls shows that universal banks still dominate overall because of the breadth of their business. But firms such as Barclays Capital, Merrill Lynch and Société Générale are scoring notable successes in their chosen areas. Clive Horwood spoke to their heads of investment banking.

Amir Hoveyda has become sole head of EMEA debt capital markets at Merrill Lynch. Appointed joint DCM head a year ago, he will pass responsibility for financial institutions to Siddharth Prasad. Under Hoveyda, Merrill has enjoyed a significant success in hybrid capital. His former co-head, Spencer Lake, will now focus on the public sector and corporate coverage effort. Jan Pethick remains chairman of EMEA DCM, which comprises all origination activities across the fixed income universe, including cash and derivatives.

Mercury had great people and a great process. When Merrill Lynch paid £3 billion for Mercury in 1997, the former City Cinderella dominated asset management. But within a few years the name had gone, and so had many of Mercury's star managers. Angela Henshall analyses how the Mercury ethos has been exported to all segments of the industry, and why Mercury's acolytes are still calling all the shots.

In buying MBNA at the end of June, Bank of America pulled off a headline-grabbing deal. At $35 billion in stock and cash, it's the second-largest financial services deal since JPMorgan Chase bought Bank One last year and the second-largest deal overall this year after Procter &Gamble's purchase of Gillette. It was brokered largely by BoA chairman and CEO Kenneth Lewis, who in a matter of days stole one of the most prized monoline credit card companies from under the noses of such rival banks as Wachovia.

Bank of America announced in June its intention of investing $3 billion for a 9% stake in China Construction Bank, China's second-biggest state lender, as part of a strategic move into the country. In a deal that took the market by surprise, Bank of America stated that it had entered into agreements with CCB to provide strategic assistance in relation to, inter alia, corporate governance, risk management, credit cards, consumer banking and treasury services. Bank of America is presumably salivating over the prospect of CCB's 136 million retail accounts and 14,500 branches.

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The US firm is committed to breaking into the European debt markets – again

Bank of America has appointed Patrick Baune as Head of European Sales for its Global Foreign Exchange business. Baune is based in London and spearheads the firm's Foreign Exchange (FX) sales initiatives within Europe. He reports jointly to Alain Delelis, head of Global Spot & Emerging Market Trading and overall head of Europe, Middle East & Africa Foreign Exchange, and Robert Gotelli, global head of Foreign Exchange Sales.

Bank of America announced today that Jonathan Moulds is to assume the role of International head of Global Markets, comprising debt and equities for Europe and Asia. Arrington Mixon, who previously ran International Debt, will be returning the USto assume the role of global head of Credit Syndicate. Moulds will return to London from Chicago in April 2005 and will report jointly to William Fall, President, International and to Mark Werner, head of Global Markets, who is based in New York. He will sit on the bank's Global Corporate and Investment Banking Executive Committee.

Return to UBS tops private banking poll

Foreign exchange

There is no room for nostalgia in the new-look Merrill Lynch. Charles Merrill might have wanted to bring Wall Street to the masses but it is the affluent who command the most attention from his successors. Since 2000, James Gorman has shaken up the private-client business with dramatic results.

Bank of America has added five members to its European debt platform in a bid to expand its universal bank strategy in Europe.