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April 29, 2009

Shareholders blast Bank of America's Lewis

This sounds like lots of fun. From thedeal.com:

Bank of America Corp.'s (NYSE:BAC) annual meeting is turning out to be a raucous affair as Ken Lewis and the board of directors are getting an earful from shareholders who are indulging in their opportunity to rail against the directors and management.


"I don't understand how you can stand up here and say that you should keep your job," one woman told Lewis, after reading him a sarcastic poem about his $50 million in compensation.


Numerous shareholders also accused Lewis of driving the bank into insolvency.


In an answer to one question, Lewis also said that management considered executing a MAC and killing the Merrill Lynch & Co. deal, but decided that it wasn't in the best interests of the shareholders, eliciting sighs from the audience.


Another shareholder vented about Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner and the stress tests, demanding that Lewis explain what the tests were and how the bank performed on them.


"Let's all be buddies here," he said. "Come clean; this is America, not a banana republic. We want to know if the preferred are going to become common."


Another shareholder began with the reading of Psalm 82 before attacking board members for being complicit with poor lending practices and credit default swaps and demanding corporate reform. "We demand that we have truly independent boards and fair compensation."

The 82nd Psalm says:

How long will you defend the unjust and show partiality to the wicked?
Posted by Jay Hancock at 12:59 PM | | Comments (0)
Categories: The Great Recession
        

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About Jay Hancock
Jay Hancock has been a financial columnist for The Baltimore Sun since 2001. He has also been The Baltimore Sun's diplomatic correspondent in Washington and its chief economics writer. Before moving to Baltimore in 1994 he worked for The Virginian-Pilot of Norfolk and The Daily Press of Newport News.

His columns appear Wednesdays and Fridays.
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