REVERSE SPIN/ the week in review

Merril doesn’t go for broker as Prince of Sales

Merrill Lynch & Co. Inc. moved toward anointing E. Stanley O’Neal as its Prince of Sales, or whatever the heir apparent is called at the nation’s No. 1 brokerage. Mr. O’Neal, 48, breaks a significant barrier: A former General Motors factory foreman, he’s the first non-broker to be boss of the company’s 14,200 brokers at a time when the company is moving to bypass them with discount investing via the Internet.

He had been executive vice president and chief financial officer and replaces John “Launny” Steffans, who was booted upstairs as a senior adviser and private client group potentate.

Chairman and CEO David Komansky, who turns 61 in April, didn’t break out the sacred chrism yet, saying there are at least four people in the running for his job.

Sibylline sayings

As diviners searched for a Rosetta stone to interpret Alan the Inscrutable’s Humphrey-Hawkins report to the House Banking Committee, at least part of the market knew what to do: Soar 121 points. That was, of course, the Nasdaq composite, which closed above 4500 for the first time, while the other major indexes dithered.

The Obscure Oracle of Constitution Avenue, otherwise known as Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan, said clearly (for him) that interest rates will rise, although he also said “inflation has remained largely contained.” That wasn’t enough to keep financial stocks from taking a hit.

Out in the wash

Lucy Edwards, 41, who headed Bank of New York’s Eastern European section in London, admitted in federal court in New York that she had turned two blind eyes to $10 billion washed, starched and ironed through her office by Russian mobsters. She and her husband, Peter Berlin, 45, admitted taking a small percentage, $1.8 million, as their share. They, in turn, say they generously gave another bank employee, Svetlana Kudryavtsev, $500 a month to make sure things kept working after they moved to London from New York. Ms. Kudryavtsev pleaded innocent to charges of lying.

Insurers thrifty

The Office of Thrift Supervision OKd the start of something called Assurance Partners Bank, a savings and loan association owned by mutual insurance companies. It will be based in Carmel, Ind., known previously principally as the hometown of unmutual insurer Conseco Inc., and offer home equity and small business loans as well as mortgages. They’ll be another thing to sell for the 1,100 agents of companies that belong to the National Association of Mutual Insurance Companies.

The office also let New York Life Insurance Co. crank up a thrift and yielded to Axa Financial Inc.’s desire to convert its South Dakota trust company to one, too. More deregulation, anyone?

Here’s a switch

In a move akin to 9,000-population Tuvalu declaring war on China, which has a few more citizens, Aeroflex Inc., with a market capitalization of $750 million, left the New York Stock Exchange for Nasdaq.

The move, the first of its kind, was made not because Aeroflex, which turns out parts for high-tech communications systems, felt it would be more comfortable with the little guys, although that played a part in it, said president Michael Gorin. The real reason, he explained, is that Nasdaq stocks go up faster than the bricks-and-mortar exchange’s stocks. Ouch. Just the news boosted his 8.6%, to $42.625.

A spokesman at Broad and Wall didn’t even look for a styptic pencil to stop the bleeding, but Frank Zarb, Nasdaq’s nabob, sharpened his scalpel in preparation for a try at cutting the Big Board down to size.