The Man Who Helped Take Out Merrill’s Chief (Armando Codina, former Jeb Bush business partner)

[seafan]

How very interesting.....


The Man Who Helped Take Out Merrill’s Chief

October 29, 2007

Et tu, Armando?

With Merrill Lynch’s chief executive, E. Stanley O’Neal, on the brink of being pushed out by his board, one director in particular is emerging as a prime mover in this Wall Street saga. That’s Armando Codina, a Florida real-estate developer who is chair of Merrill’s nomination and corporate governance committee. Mr. Codina’s role in the shake-up is remarkable because he was among the directors that Mr. O’Neal recently selected to join Merrill’s board; the two men got to know each other as fellow directors at General Motors.

When Mr. Codina became a Merrill director in June 2005, Mr. O’Neal said he was “extremely pleased to have an entrepreneur and business leader of the caliber of Armando Codina join the board of directors of Merrill Lynch.”

Mr. O’Neal may be feeling a lot differently now. It was Mr. Codina, along with two other Merrill directors, John D. Finnegan and Charles O. Rossotti, who took the lead last week in considering whether Mr. O’Neal should be replaced, The New York Times reported. The impetus was Merrill’s dismal third-quarter results, in which the securities firm reported a $2.3 billion loss — the largest in its history — largely because of its exposure to mortgage-related securities, which have plunged in value.

The announcement of Mr. O’Neal’s departure was expected to come as early as Monday, according to reports.

Mr. Codina sits on the boards of some of the best-known companies in the United States. In addition to Merrill and G.M., he is the lead director at AMR, the parent of American Airlines. Until recently, he was a director at Burger King Holdings. In August, he became a director at Home Depot.

He has dealt with turmoil in the executive suite before. Mr. Codina was part of AMR’s compensation committee in 2003, when Donald Carty resigned as the airline’s chief executive amid a furor over perks given to top AMR executives, including Mr. Carty, at the same time that unionized AMR employees were being asked for deep concessions on pay and benefits.

Mr. Codina also has strong political ties. He was a partner in real-estate ventures with Jeb Bush, the former governor of Florida, and helped out his brother, President Bush, in his 2004 re-election campaign.

.....

While Jeb now sits on Tenet Health Care board and is a *financial adviser* at Lehman Brothers...... looks like Jeb and Armando, former business partners, are hitting the boardroom circuit together as well.


American Airlines, even?



Hmmmmm.