What I found interesting in this story is that CAL-PERS is suing bank of america. A little insight on CAl-PERS: they are one of the most admired investment groups in the world. At the height of the market, their holding amounted to almost 1% of the entire market. I think they have some clout....

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090324/ap_on_bi_ge/bank_of_america_shareholder

I remember the one conversation I had with Ken Lewis about a year before I left B of A. Arrogant SOB, and he was working under Hugh McColl.

Once he and McColl and their Nations Bank took over, they gutted Bank of America and most of the intelligence left that bank, including me.

BoA sucks, But I HAVE to bank with either them USBank, or Wells Fargo, and I shudder thinking about Wells Fargo and USBank.
It'd be nice if Union Bank of California opened a branch in Oly.

UBOC was profitable last year, but half of what they did they year before. There are a few of their branches up north.

Why are you limited to only banking with those banks Irie?

It has to do with California State Law and financial transfers out of state, since Cali is an income tax state, Im limited to banks that do biz in WA and CA only.

In January, Bank of America received an additional $20 billion from the government — on top of $25 billion it already received — that the bank said it needed to help offset the losses it was absorbing from the Merrill acquisition. The additional support was provided as Lewis showed misgivings about completing the deal to acquire Merrill.


Dogfish-

with your insight, does the boldtype sentence sound truthful, that Lewis was reluctant?

He and McColl made their names gobbling up and assimilating other financial institutions. It would seem to me that he didn't pay too much attention to the Due Dilligence phase when they were offered to step into the Merril Lynch deal. Once it was his, or he had committed B of A to the deal, I think he may certainly had an "OH SH!T!" moment.

What the general public doesn't know is that the governing agencies for these financial institutions, FDIC, OCC, NCUA, etc. basically allow a collection of the healthy banks to bid on the assets and liabilities of a failing institution. Information is distributed a week or so before the planned closure so the acquiring banks can perform due dilligence on what parts of the failing institution they want to take.

My guess is that Lewis thought, "What a nice feather to have in my cap, taking down Merril Lynch," and bid the buy at a price guaranteed to win it. His ego got in the way of reason. Ooops!

DF-

On a side note for BofA, I had someone connected with the bank tell me that congress made a special allowance for BofA to acquire all these smaller banks during this time of financial stress as no banking institution is supposed to control 10% or more of the available cash supply. He said that BofA had absorbed about 13-14% of the available cash supply with previous holdings and new holdings. True?

Not sure of that, but they are one of the "healthier" banks out there.