Valle takes the job in aftermath of $80-million loss blamed on speculation. Merrill Lynch has put Carlos Valle in charge of the New York-based "international complex" of its wealth-management group. He replaces Ricardo Morean, who left Merrill a few weeks ago after the firm initiated a lawsuit against three South American investors and a related $80-million first-quarter write-down.

Nassers

Valle joined Merrill in 1989. Before his latest appointment with Merrill's international wealth-management group, he oversaw equity and fixed-income sales to institutions in the U.S. and Latin America.

Morean's was one of several heads to roll after Merrill decided that three of its clients -- Ezequiel Nasser, his son Raymond Nasser and his uncle Albert Nasser -- defrauded several of its offshore holdings to the tune of about $78 million.

The father and son Nassers are citizens of Brazil. Albert Nasser is a citizen of Argentina.

Merrill has said the Nassers are members of the Safra family, which controls São Paulo, Brazil-based Safra Group, an international network of privately held companies including banks. The Safra family says the Nassers have nothing to with them. (But then a December 1999 article in the New York Times identifies an "Ezequiel Nasser" as a nephew of Safra Group chairman Joseph Safra.) -FWR

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