John Thain, chairman and chief executive officer, led a delegation of senior Merrill Lynch executives who joined political, business and civic leaders from across the globe at the 2008 World Economic Forum Annual Meeting in Davos, Switzerland.

The five-day conference, which concluded on January 27 and featured “The Power of Collaborative Innovation” as its theme, included panel discussions, workshops and one-on-one meetings, and addresses from world dignitaries ranging from U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, to Bill Gates, the chairman of Microsoft.

As a strategic partner, Merrill Lynch sent five senior managers to the closely-watched event. They included Mr. Thain, Greg Fleming, president and chief operating officer, Bill McDonough, vice chairman and special advisor to the chairman, Andrea Orcel, head of Global Origination, and Nate Thorne, head of Global Private Equity.

Among senior relationship bankers who also attended the annual meeting were Jeffrey Culpepper, head of GMI in the Middle East and North Africa, Erh-Fei Liu, chairman of Merrill Lynch’s China region, Guy Savard, chairman of Merrill Lynch Canada, and Kevan Watts, chairman of Merrill Lynch International.

A centerpiece of the event was an annual client reception hosted by Merrill Lynch. The gala drew more than 300 world and business leaders to the Belvedere Hotel on January 24.

In still another dimension to the gathering, Mr. Thain discussed the future of Merrill Lynch and the global economic environment in a string of interviews with media outlets, including Bloomberg, CNN, CNBC and BBC.

“We are very well positioned to go forward into 2008,” Mr. Thain said in the Bloomberg interview. “I’m really focused on growing the business,” he said, adding that the risk management process is being fundamentally changed and that the firm is aiming to grow in, among other markets, Brazil, Russia, India and China.

In the CNN interview, he said falling home prices are driving the economy’s problems in the United States and, as consumers pull back, there’s no doubt that the American economy is going to slow. He said steps being taken by the Federal Reserve and the presidential administration should help.

In the CNBC interview, Mr. Thain said that Merrill Lynch has raised sufficient capital from outside investors. “We’re now going to focus on our business,” he said, adding that the firm is now in “good shape.”

The annual meeting, which drew more than 2,500 participants from 88 countries, also served as an opportunity to highlight the Merrill Lynch brand to major constituents. The firm advertised in magazines distributed at the event, and in other media, including web banners, television ads and flags outside the Belvedere Hotel.

In a video segment shown at the event, Merrill Lynch executives discussed the firm’s strengths and future potential.

“Not only are we a leader on Wall Street, but we are the preeminent brand on Main Street as well,” Nelson Chai, chief financial officer, said in the video.

“We have all different kinds of clients at our company,” Bob McCann, president of Global Wealth Management, added in the segment. “We have major corporations, we have governments, we have individuals. But at its core, what we do is to make sure that we can solve those clients’ problems.”

With collaboration and innovation the themes of the annual meeting, the gathering focused on five conceptual pillars — competing while collaborating in business, addressing economic insecurity, aligning interests across geopolitical divides, exploring nature’s new frontiers in science and technology, and understanding future shifts in values and across society.

Among the panel discussions, Mr. Fleming participated in “The Rising Influence of Minority Shareholders.” The group examined why small shareholders, often with stakes of less than one percent, are increasingly influencing strategic and operational decisions of major public corporations. Mr. McDonough’s panel focused on “Managing Systematic Financial Risk.”

Mr. Thain’s panel, “The Global Economic Outlook 2008,” looked at how the world economy might evolve in the next 12 to 18 months in light of growing concerns about a slowdown in the United States and Europe.

He said that problems in the credit market are spreading to the consumer sector, so difficulties can be expected in credit card and auto loan receivables and home equity loans. Consumer bankruptcies increased 40 percent in 2007, which may trigger another wave of problems on the consumer credit card side, and this will all be exacerbated by a rise in unemployment and high energy prices, he said.

“It will be a while before you see a return to any form of normalcy in the credit and banking related sectors in the United States,” Mr. Thain said.