Who knew? Via Bloomberg Thursday night, comes this:

Merrill Lynch & Co. Chief Executive Officer John Thain told employees that Bank of America Corp. “cut our trading lines” in the days before it bought the firm, signaling a loss of confidence in the brokerage’s ability to pay. Thain made the comments while explaining his decision to sell Merrill, according to five employees who attended the event at the company’s New York headquarters. The Sept. 15 remarks were rebroadcast on an internal system to all 60,000 employees.

I don’t know which HW readers have been through M&A wars before, but let’s just say Merrill’s Thain was likely worried about much more than being left in the cold if Lehman had found a deal…