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And the Winner, er, Loser Is...
Portfolio.com readers speak: Who is the least trustworthy C.E.O. on Wall Street?
John Thain has been thumped recently for having apparently reversed course on some initially reassuring comments he made about Merrill Lynch's capital position.
But he's hardly alone in having been overly optimistic amid the mortgage meltdown, as Portfolio.com writer Megan Barnett recently documented.
That raised the question of which financial-services C.E.O. is saddled with the widest credibility gap these days. So we asked our readers to vote.
By that measure Thain came out fairly well, perhaps because Merrill is still in business and Thain still has his job.
Readers said the least trustworthy executive is Alan Schwartz, who was unfortunate enough to be in the corner office at Bear Stearns when the C.D.O.'s hit the fan there in March.
Close behind: Martin Sullivan, formerly chief executive of American International Group, who famously calculated the chances of AIG posting a loss as "close to zero" -- a few months before AIG posted losses of $13 billion.
Thain came in sixth place of our nine nominees, a few basis points behind Dick Fuld at Lehman Brothers.
The Final Tally:
Alan Schwartz: "Capital ... remains strong." 26%
Martin Sullivan: Chance of a loss? "Zero." 22%
Ken Lewis: There's "value in Countrywide." 12%
Ken Thompson: We're in "a great market." 11%
Dick Fuld: "The worst is behind us." 8%
John Thain: "We have tackled the problem." 8%
Vikram Pandit: We are "well-capitalized." 7%
Kerry Killinger: "Profitability" in 2008. 4%
John Mack: "Comfortable" with the risks. 3%
Total does not add up to 100 percent because of rounding.
by Mark Stein
Photograph of Alan Schwartz by David Sandler/Bloomberg News/Landov.
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