FINANCIAL TIMES MONDAY 6 NOVEMBER 2017 FACE TO FACE GREG FLEMING CV `Rockefeller. I want that name out there' BEN MCLANNAHAN G reg Fleming was on a treadmill in Dallas on the morning of Wednesday September 10 2008, watching earnings from Lehman Brothers, when he became convinced it would fail and his company, Merrill Lynch, would be next. The calls the ex-president of Merrill Lynch made over the next couple of days were vital in arranging a S50bn rescue by Bank of America by Sam on Sunday. Lehman went bust a day later. "0.8515 shares of Bank of America for every share of Merrill Lynch;' he says with pride, as if reading off a press release. "It was basically an on/ off switch. You got it done in that crucible . .. or not." Life at his new shop, Rockefeller Capital Manage- ment, is unlikely to quicken the pulse in the same way. Announced last month, the firm will be carved out of the financial services arm of the legendary oil family, with about 200 employees across wealth management and asset management, mostly looking after rich and ultra rich clients. Not quite Merrill's "thundering herd", or the army of advisers at Morgan Stanley, where Mr Fleming ran the wealth and investment management division for six years. Indeed, some people on Wall Street are still wondering why Mr Fleming, a lean and hungry 54, would have thrown in his lot with the Rockefellers, who will own part of the new business with Viking Global Investors, a hedge fund up in Connecticut. After leaving Morgan Stanley in January last year there was no shortage of offers; he talked to BlackRock, Blackstone and American Express, among others, during a spell teaching ethics and financial markets at Yale Law, his almamater. The nearly man at Merrill and Morgan Stanley, forever one or two steps off the top spot, was always seen as "CEO material", says Mike Mayo, a veteran bankwatcher at Wells Fargo in New York. But Mr Flemi