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That's the kind of question CEOs must ask themselves after days like Bank of America's Brian Moynihan had Wednesday: he conducted a nearly three-hour shareholder meeting that featured some quirky (not to mention vocal) guests.
May 8 -
Bank of America CEO Brian Moynihan and Chairman Charles Holliday pledged to hold the right people responsible for the $4 billion accounting error in its capital plan that hurt shareholders but only after they carefully study what went wrong.
May 7 -
Financial pundits weigh in on questions raised and conclusions drawn from Bank of America's capital mistake, in tweets.
May 1 -
Predictions vary widely on how hard it will be for foreign banks to comply with a new capital rule from the Federal Reserve. Many will have to sell branches or loans, or they may just need to shuffle some legal paperwork, depending on whom you speak with.
March 5 -
Observers expressed alarm over Monday's announcement that Bank of America submitted incorrect information to the Federal Reserve Board for its stress tests, saying it raises doubts about the credibility of the test.
April 28
Bank of America (BAC) raised its quarterly dividend to 5 cents a share and dropped plans to buy back stock after the Federal Reserve approved its resubmitted capital plan for 2014.
The dividend will rise from 1 cent, the Charlotte, N.C., company said Wednesday. Plans for the increase were postponed in April after Bank of America said it made an error in its original request to the Fed. The central bank said Wednesday it did not object to the company's revised plan.
Chief Executive Officer Brian T. Moynihan, 54, had to suspend the dividend increase and $4 billion of planned share repurchases after the company said it incorrectly adjusted for losses on structured notes issued by Merrill Lynch & Co. The boost to the dividend, which was cut to a token amount during the financial crisis, is the first in seven years.
"Shareholders were pressuring them more for the dividend than the buyback," Charles Peabody, a Portales Partners LLC analyst in New York, said in a telephone interview. "In order to get a successful situation they decided to forgo the one for the other."
The firm's Tier 1 leverage ratio would drop to no lower than 4.1% in the Fed's "severely adverse" scenario after including the lowered capital-return request, the central bank said in a separate announcement. That cleared regulators' 4% required minimum.
Peabody said it was a "shrewd move" to ask only for a higher dividend for now, and sets the company up for the possibility of a buyback next March. Still, he said he expected a $2 billion share repurchase.
Bank of America shareholders have been pressing Moynihan to raise the dividend for most of his tenure, which began at the start of 2010. The CEO told investors in March of 2011 that he could restore part of the quarterly payout, which was 64 cents in 2008.
Bank of America had its 2011 capital proposal rejected as competitors including New York-based JPMorgan Chase and Wells Fargo., based in San Francisco, increased their payouts. Moynihan's firm didn't ask for a dividend increase in 2012 and got a $5 billion share repurchase program approved last year.
The Fed last month extended deadlines until next year for revised capital plans from Citigroup and the U.S. units of HSBC Holdings, Royal Bank of Scotland Group and Banco Santander after objecting to earlier versions.
