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A proposed new text message feature allowing customers to elect overdraft coverage on individual debit transactions marks a shift in the way B of A approaches the overdraft issue.
May 6 -
Letting the numbers speak for themselves, Bank of America has sent a message to anyone still disgruntled over its $29.1 billion purchase of Merrill Lynch. And that message is: "I told you so."
April 29 -
The shaky economy is making it difficult for Bank of America to shrug off its mortgage woes, and dampening returns from business lines that might offset the lopsided burden.
April 15 -
Charles Noski has stepped down as chief financial officer of Bank of America Corp. a year after taking the job because of "the illness of a close family member," Chief Executive Brian Moynihan told analysts Friday.
April 15 -
Some execs may have been out of the loop on a filing on the Fed's rejection of its dividend plan — the kind of snafu that raises fears Brian Moynihan's new team still isn't gelling.
April 13
On big things and small, Bank of America's chief executive, Brian Moynihan, got an earful from shareholders Wednesday at the company's annual meeting.
Investors expressed disapproval about B of A's handling of mortgage modifications and executive bonuses, and complained about trivial matters such as the inaccessibility of the meeting location.
Moynihan and his management team received some compliments as well, from shareholders who were pleased with B of A's progress in sloughing through the housing mess and for implementing a no-overdraft policy on debit card purchases. (There was also a shareholder who gave the bank a nod for not holding the meeting during Passover.)
The range of questions, comments and concerns raised the meeting at B of A's headquarters in Charlotte, N.C., is reflective of the lumpy progress it has made over the past couple of years. Results have improved on a number of fronts, like the credit card business. But B of A's unwieldy mortgage unit is still clearly holding the bank back from realizing more significant profits and being able to return those to shareholders.
"There are really two stories in the company right now," Moynihan said at the start of the meeting. "On the one hand we have a franchise that goes out and wins in the market every day. On the other hand, we have a mortgage business which continues to work through the troubles of the past, principally due to the Countrywide acquisition of three years ago."
"No company has more exposure than we do," to the housing market, he said, noting that B of A's mortgage business has lost $17 billion since the purchase of Countrywide Financial Corp. in 2008. And though B of A has made progress in working through the troubled mortgages, adding 20,000 employees to service delinquent loans and opening up numerous counseling centers across the country, there is no doubt more work to do, Moynihan said.
The overhanging Countrywide issues have hurt B of A's chances at raising its dividend — something many of its peers have been able to do. Earlier this year, regulators declined B of A's request to raise the dividend in the second half of this year. Moynihan stressed that B of A plans to resubmit a proposal to regulators and will raise the dividend as soon as it is granted approval. He said he believes B of A should be able to work through most of these issues by the end of the year. The dividend, which stands at 1 cent, was generally uncontested by shareholders. One disgruntled stock owner, though, did chastise Moynihan and his team for accepting bonuses at a time when "the dividend is not worth even cashing the check."
Shareholders were more critical and probing of Moynihan than they were last year, when he had only been on the job for four months.
Overall, the mood at the meeting was decisively better than it was two years ago, when Moynihan's predecessor Kenneth D. Lewis was stripped of his chairman title amid a barrage of criticism from shareholders over the bank's acceptance of $45 billion in government bailout money, not to mention a tumbling stock price and a slashed dividend.
At Wednesday's meeting, shareholders ratified all 13 director nominees, as well as the selection of PricewaterhouseCoopers as the bank's independent accounting firm for 2011.
Shareholders also approved the adoption of an advisory "say on pay" vote to approve executive compensation, and a measure to hold such an advisory vote annually.
All eight shareholder proposals — including one from the New York City Comptroller's office recommending the bank's board review the company's controls for loan modifications, foreclosures and securitizations — failed.
