Merrill writedowns, the role of BofA

It has been discovered that Bank of America Corp was a part of fourth-quarter write-downs at Merrill Lynch & Co before it acquired the brokerage firm, writes the Financial Times.

People familiar with the matter have told the paper, Neil Cotty, chief accounting officer of Bank of America, had participated in determining write-downs for complex debt instruments and leveraged loans at Merrill.

A bit later, in January, Charlotte, North Carolina-based Bank of America bought Merrill Lynch and sought government assistance to complete the deal due to it not being aware of the massive losses at Merrill in December. The losses of Merrill Lynch in the fourth quarter exceeded the figure determined by Bank of America by about $533 million and made $15.84 billion.