John Thain on His New Job as CEO of Merrill Lynch

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Would you like to see Merrill get bigger? Would you like to see acquisitions globally?

Not necessarily. Goldman—[I mean,] Merrill is already a global franchise. And it has, as I said before, probably the world-class position in wealth management. It's got a great position in investment banking and in sales and trading. It's got a good private equity business. So I don't think it necessarily needs to do any particular acquisitions. I think right at the moment we'll focus on just developing the businesses we have.

How will you manage Merrill's sprawling empire of brokers, a task O'Neal never really mastered?

I'm not sure that a sprawling network of brokers is necessarily any more difficult to manage than a sprawling network of investment bankers or salesmen traders. Merrill is a global franchise. It has financial advisers as opposed to brokers, and so we should amend the way you asked the question. In the end, it really comes down to the people, the culture, and the communication systems.

Some might say Merrill has had a lot of failed attempts at investment banking, but would you expand that area?

I don't agree with the way you've asked the question. I don't think investment banking had failed attempts. I think Merrill is a very strong competitor in the investment banking space.

You oversaw mortgages at Goldman, but some might say you do not have the fixed-income experience. Is that an issue, and how will you solve Merrill's subprime woes?

I ran mortgages for five years [at Goldman]. I was inside the fixed-income area for that period of time. And then when I was the CFO, all of the risk areas reported to me. So I was on the risk-taking side for five years, and then I was on the risk-management side for another five years. I don't think there's any issue with my knowledge or expertise in the fixed-income areas.

You have said that on an industrywide level, there's more pain to come.

That's correct. I believe, particularly in the CDO market and in the subprime mortgage market, there is going to continue to be downward pressure on prices. I think that it will take probably 6 to 12 months for these problems to be totally worked out.

Maria Bartiromo is the anchor of CNBC's Closing Bell .