Winthrop Smith, the former executive vice president of Merrill Lynch has denied a Financial Times report that he recently approached Kenneth Lewis, the current Bank of America head, to discuss re-acquiring all or part of the bank.

According to Reuters, Mr Smith said he dined about two months ago in Charlotte, North Carolina, with Mr Lewis, former Merrill chief executive Dan Tully and former Merrill private client head Launny Steffens. The meeting was also attended by Dan Sontag, head of Bank of America Merrill Lynch's global wealth management unit.

Mr Smith told the newswire they had a general conversation about Bank of America's 1 January acquisition of Merrill. They also discussed US government restrictions affecting Bank of America after it received $45 billion in government money.

"We just had a very nice lunch with him," Mr Smith, a son of one of Merrill's co-founders, was quoted as saying. "We got the impression he's very committed to making the acquisition work. A lot of Merrill Lynch (employees) would like to see that happen but I don't see that as a reality," Mr Smith was quoted as saying.

These comments flatly contradict the FT report, which said they discussed buying back some or all of Merrill Lynch. Merrill Lynch did not return calls from WealthBriefing on Friday.

Last week, US authorities questioned Kenneth Lewis on his decisions to seek cover from the Federal Reserve without telling shareholders about losses at Merrill Lynch last December, media reports said.

Mr Lewis defended his conduct before the US House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, defending the decision to go ahead with the government-assisted Merrill takeover and keep the firm's ballooning losses secret. He also said he didn't feel that federal officials acted improperly in the deal.