Merrill Lynch & Co. Inc.'s chief executive officer, John Thain, said he expects "thousands" of job losses as a result of his company's $50 billion takeover by Bank of America Corp.
Most of the cuts would be made in information technology, operations, and "corporate functions," Mr. Thain said Tuesday in a Bloomberg Television interview in Dubai. Jobs in the fixed-income and commodities divisions would not be eliminated after the deal closes, he said.
"We haven't mapped it out in terms of actual number of people, but we are committed to saving $7 billion across the combined platforms, and that will be a challenge," Mr. Thain said. "Between our two companies, it will be clearly thousands of jobs."
Mr. Thain would oversee corporate and investment banking and wealth management at B of A. Some observers say that position would make him a potential successor to Kenneth Lewis, B of A's CEO.
