Comments on: Ken Lewis: Halfway out

By: Survivor?

Survivor? — Thu, 30 Apr 2009 06:32:08 +0000

From Wikipedia re the China melamine baby milk scandal.
“On 22 January 2009 Tian was sentenced to life imprisonment, while other Sanlu executives received sentences of five to fifteen years. Two other men were sentenced to death.”
I guess some “Masters of the Universe” are glad they are in the USA.
Another competitive advantage for China when too much power brings too much corruption ?

By: nyongesa

nyongesa — Thu, 30 Apr 2009 03:43:08 +0000

You have to have been living in a cave to believe that the countrywide deal could have turned out better than the disaster it was. At the time, there where numorous bits of info all over the blogoshphere by ex-anlaysts and credit specialists stating that Countrywide was the sickest of the sub-prime zombies. They where going down the tube fast.

Amazingly Bofa made very little attempt to cut a tough deal with what was obviuosly a desperate countrywide board. $44 billion was massive over payment, and in retrospect even zero, for all that toxic poison would have been bad.

The point is this guy was gambling at the time, shooting from the hip. He is paid tens of millions to be astute at analysing risk. Moreover he has many highly educated very expensive experts around him to feed him the information and intelligence he requires to make intelligent decisions.

The facts are that had Ken Lewis been a mid-level BoFa loan manager and made these kinds of mistakes he would have been chewed up and spat out by his superiors long ago. It is just at the top that hese extrodinary double standards apply.

By: Chris

Chris — Thu, 30 Apr 2009 01:06:30 +0000

Its sad that Ken Lewis has been caught up in this. He obviously thought it was a good deal to acquire Countrywide and Merryil Lynch. Its a hihg stakes game! Think what would have happened had these deals turned out right!

By: chimbros

chimbros — Thu, 30 Apr 2009 00:48:57 +0000

Hope Lewis push-out soon, as he did a very bad job and make all share holder lost a lot of monay!

By: Stop Hatin On Lewis

Stop Hatin On Lewis — Thu, 30 Apr 2009 00:39:40 +0000

Truthfully, I have no dog in the fight, but I can tell you that as long as BofA is associated with Charlotte/McColl, Ken Lewis will be around until retirement.

I’m sure you’re probably one of the very many that wishes BofA would just go away. I’m sure this has something to do with the fact you probably are in debt to the bank and think by making BofA go away your monthly payments, too, will disappear.

With that being said- I think the company will probably end up thanking their lucky stars that the roles were split (maybe not). This way, investors will feel that Ken can further focus all his energies on getting BofA back on the right track.

By: nadezhda

nadezhda — Thu, 30 Apr 2009 00:10:47 +0000

Even if his performance had been more credible, I’m glad to see the Chairman job split from the CEO’s.