Merrill Lynch & Co. chairman and chief executive John Thain, under fire for suggesting the firm's compensation committee pay him a multimillion-dollar bonus, will be going home without a bonus this year, according to people familiar with the matter.

Merrill's other four top executives including Merrill president Gregory Fleming and wealth management chief Robert McCann, jointly asked the board's compensation committee not to pay them for their work in 2008, a miserable year on Wall Street and for Merrill, which saw its stock fall dramatically and in September was forced to sell itself to Bank of America.