Ken Lewis’ sudden resignation as chief executive of Bank of America left the company’s board of directors, as well as many of its shareholders, scratching their heads over whole will take the reins of the financial giant and when. Now that the company has established a variety of plans, though, a new conflict has arisen among shareholders over whether or not Bank of America’s new leader should be a BofA insider or outsider.
Lewis has spent the last eight years as CEO of the company and forty years with Bank of America in all, but his departure came as an unexpected …read more

Heading into Friday, 69 banks had been shut down by United States federal regulators in 2009. On Friday, three more banks were added to the tally — raising the annual total to 72 failed banks.
Two of the banks that were shut down were located in the state of Florida, while Oregon was the home to the other bank. As usual, the receiver of the banks is the FDIC.
The two Florida banks were Community National Bank of Sarasoty County (based in Venice, Florida) and First State Bank (based in Sarasota, Florida). Both of these Florida banks saw their deposits get acquired …read more

Amid a slew of controversy regarding his decision to defend Chief Executive Kenneth D. Lewis, Temple Sloan Jr., Bank of America Corp. lead director, has decided to resign. This development marks the end of a thirteen-year stint as a board member of Bank of America for Sloan.
Sloan submitted his resignation to Walter E. Massey, the man who replaced him as the chairman of the board after its April meeting. Although he had recently been reelected to the board by investors, Sloan received the fewest amount of votes of any director. Advisory firms RiskMetrics Group Inc., Proxy Governance Inc., and Finger …read more

According to Federal Reserve Vice Chairman Donald Kohn, the economy is possibly showing signs of forthcoming stability. However, Kohn is not so optimistic about the strength of the economy, even after it has recovered, and has confirmed that rate hikes will not be coming any time soon.
Kohn’s comments on the economy, which he made at a conference at Princeton University, are not quite as optimistic as those made by the Federal Reserve’s staff in late April. Still, Kohn defended the governmental program to buy up toxic assets as necessary to avoid an economic crisis that could have been even worse.
As …read more

Recently, the stock market has been on a roll. On Monday, the recent momentum was paused. Many market experts believe that the momentum over the last several weeks has investors and traders thinking that the recovery is moving too quickly. Despite this pause, most experts believe that the rally will once again pick up steam sooner rather than later.
The Dow Jones industrial average finished Monday at 8,418.8, a drop of slightly less than 2%, while the S&P’s 500 fell slightly more than 2% to 909.2. The NASDAQ index wasn’t hit as hard — falling only 0.5% to finish the day …read more

Not long ago, it seemed like the stock market would never stop dropping. However, after a few weeks of strong gains, the mood on Wall Street is much improved. Many experts believe that the worst days are in the past and that the future should include a steady climb.
On Monday, all the indexes look healthy. The Dow Jones industrial average went up 2.6% to finish the day at 8,426.7. NASDAQ finished at 1,763.6 after also jumping 2.6%, while the Standard & Poor’s 500 index was up 3.4% to 907.2.
The Standard & Poor’s 500 index is especially impressive because that index …read more

Banking woes aren’t limited to the United States. In India, ICICI Bank saw its profits plummet in the latest quarter. ICICI Bank is India’s largest bank, with more than 1,400 branches, and it’s growing quickly. Soon, the company says it will boast more than 2,000 branches.
In the first quarter of 2009, ICICI Bank posted a profit of about $145 million. In 2008, the first quarter saw the bank post profits of more than $225 million. The total income for the bank also dropped about 10%.
“Given the current scenario,” said ICICI Bank CFO Chanda Kochhar, “the priority is to conserve capital …read more

According to reports on Saturday, Sumitomo Mitsui, one of Japan’s top three banks, now has exclusive negotiating rights from Citigroup to acquire Nikko Cordial Securities Inc. — Citigroup Inc.’s Japanese brokerage unit.
Exclusive negotiating rights are awarded to the highest bidder. Reportedly Sumitomo Mitsui offered approximately 500 billion yen ($5 billion USD) to beat out Mizuho Financial Group and Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group, according to the Nikkei business daily newspaper.
Kyodo news agency also reported that Sumitomo Mitsui has attained negotiating rights from Citigroup to buy Nikko Cordial, Japan’s third-biggest brokerage.
Citigroup is trying to scale back in Japan in order to …read more

Sun Bancorp is the sixth bank to give back bailout money to the United States federal government. The bank, which is located in Vineland, New Jersey, sent approximately $90 million back to the government after receiving it in the second week of 2009.
Combined, the money the six banks have returned the feds so far reportedly totals around $450 million. However, that is just a small drop in the bucket compared to the price of the bailout. Approximately $200 billion was given to companies in the banking industry as part of the federal financial rescue plan.
Although the exact motives for why …read more