IANR

The Murky Lewis-and-Thain Story

Thain's job was primarily to sell ML to BoA for the best price possible. Namely $29.00 per share. He achieved this, though she eems not to have apprised neither his BoD, nor shareholders of the near hiccup due to large ML write-downs.
Lewis' job was to acquire ML for an attractive price. Since the larger than expected ML losses caused a near rethink why did not Lewis reduce the price BoA would finally pay for ML? i.e. well below the $29.00 price? Such a last minute renegotiation of price would seem to have been logical and acceptable to both sides (what was ML's alternative??). It would also have meant that BoA would have needed slightly less funds from the Treasury surely? The only losers would have been ML shareholders, but it was their company which was bleeding money....