Less than 48 hours after Bank of America announced it was buying Merrill Lynch a tired Jonathan Moulds stood in front of an audience of more than 100 financial journalists at the Tate Britain art gallery and spoke about the weekend he had just endured.

As head of Bank of America's international business, Moulds was the bank's most senior employee based outside the US and had been called in at short notice to deal with the international aspects of putting together the acquisition of Merrill Lynch.