Bank of America is jettisoning big chunks of Merrill Lynch’s global brain trust. The latest to depart, sources tell us, is Mark Matthews, Merrill’s chief Asia strategist and a regular commentator on TV. Matthews joins Greg Fleming, one of the architects of Merrill’s sale to Bank of America, Europe exec Brent Clapacs, and brokerage chief Bob McCann in the exit procession.

Bank of America investors may well be concerned about the departures. What was sold to shareholders as a great deal to pick up Merrill’s lucrative financial advisory business is starting to look like a big cost-cutting exercise with dashes of culture clashes.

The exiting execs are surely being outfitted with appropriately gilded parachutes. But with the market for investment bankers, strategists, analysts and pretty much anybody associated with financial alchemy in dire shape, and the ink still drying on the merger, it’s easy to imagine these high-profile departures having more to do with cultural differences than the generous exit packages on offer.

We can only speculate, but one person who must know is John Thain, Merrill’s former chief executive, who traded down to the position of president of global banking, securities and wealth management.

Deals News:
* A Chinese company and private equity firms are among the groups expected to submit final bids for Rio Tinto’s borates and talc units, according to sources close to the matter, in a deal potentially worth over $1 billion.

* China’s Sichuan Shuangma Cement said it planned to sell new shares worth $410 million to a unit of French construction group Lafarge to raise money to buy the unit’s assets in a joint venture.

* Avacta has launched an all-share bid for diagnostics specialist Curidium Medical, the companies said, as smaller firms begin to band together seeking to weather the economic storm.

(Photo:Air force personnel parachute during their passing-out ceremony at the air force base in Trincomalee 19/10/2008. REUTERS/Stringer Sri Lanka)