Merrill interim chief sat on Tyco, Cosmos boards

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Alberto Cribiore, Merrill Lynch & Co Inc's MER.N new interim leader, is a veteran dealmaker who has sat on the boards of the New York Cosmos soccer team and Tyco International Ltd during the early days of Dennis Kozlowski.

Cribiore, a native of Milan, Italy, on Tuesday became Merrill's non-executive chairman after the board ousted Chairman and Chief Executive Stan O'Neal. He will lead the search to find a replacement.

Merrill said on Tuesday Cribiore was not granting interviews.

After graduating from Bocconi University in Milan, Cribiore moved to the United States to make investments for the Italian businessman Giovanni Agnelli, who ran a conglomerate that included auto maker Fiat S.p.A.

In 1982, Cribiore was hired by Warner Communications, where he became a senior executive and deal maker at the entertainment company. Warner put him on the board of the Cosmos soccer team, whose players included Brazilian great Pele and which later folded after heavy losses.

Cribiore left Warner in 1985 to join private equity firm Clayton, Dubilier & Rice. Cribiore was a principal of CD&R from 1985 to March 1997 and co-president from 1995 to March 1997.

He then founded Brera, whose limited partners include the private equity funds of Merrill Lynch and other large Wall Street companies.

When Tyco bought Kendall International Inc in 1994, Cribiore joined Tyco's board as part of the deal. He had been a Kendall board member.

The Kendall deal was an early feather in the cap of then-Tyco Chairman Dennis Kozlowski, whose-decade long acquisition binge preceded his conviction for looting the company. Cribiore had been off Tyco's board for several years before Kozlowski's downfall.

As the newly minted chairman of Merrill in 2003, O'Neal handpicked Cribiore to help him oversee the brokerage.

"(Cribiore) brings keen insight across a number of industries, and is widely respected as a person of integrity, character and sound judgment," O'Neal then said.