A Stress-Free Briefing by Thain, Lewis Masks Tough Market Conditions

Stress. That was the one element missing from today’s press conference with John Thain and Kenneth Lewis regarding the agreement signed yesterday for Bank of America Corp. to acquire Merrill Lynch.

“As it relates to us, the combined company is a much stronger entity and will survive most anything as a result of the combination,” said Lewis, the CEO of BofA. “This is a strategic opportunity of a lifetime.”

BofA said yesterday that it will pay about $50 billion for Merrill Lynch, the New York investment bank.

If Lewis and Thain, Merrill’s CEO, showed a degree of stress, it would be understandable. The press conference I attended took place at BofA’s new office tower in Manhattan and “John and Ken” spoke for perhaps three minutes and took questions for maybe another 10. Lewis clearly sees dark clouds continuing for the financial services sector, and no matter how Thain frames it, “redundancies” among Merrill’s staff will be “eliminated.”

“We have gone through a golden era of banking,” Lewis said.

The press conference offered a bit more clarity on the deal:

-BofA started negotiating with Merrill on Saturday and closed on Sunday because Lewis wanted BofA to “seize on this opportunity” rather than wait, Lewis said. Not the best negotiating stance on the part of BofA.

-Merrill plans to sell its financial products to BofA clients.

-BofA said that for now it will keep the “Merrill Lynch” name and organization.

-Systems integration between BofA and Merrill won’t take place until early 2010.

Lewis summed up a pessimistic prognosis for banking, saying banking won’t turn around until 2010, or perhaps showing “signs” of improvement in 2009.

“I don’t see the clouds parting like I would like them to” for a 2009 improvement, Lewis said.

That seems like a stressful situation to us.