Among the highlights of the call are:
-
The structure of the management team is yet to be determined
-
Both Bank of America and Merrill Lynch said they have nominal exposure to Lehman
-
The deal is expected to close in the first quarter of 2009 and provide cost savings of $7 billion
-
Merrill holds just under 50% of BlackRock Inc, which has a market value of
about $14 billion; "there are no quirks when it comes to that holding."
-
Bank of America is comfortable with the progress Merrill Lynch has made in reducing their risk.
During the Q&A, Bank of America's brass said they agreed to pay $29
per share in spite of the market turmoil because "we viewed it as such
a strategic opportunity that we decided not to roll the dice." Bank of
America said that it was concerned that another bidder might come in
and take a large equity position in the company.
When asked how it would rebuild the capital base after swallowing both
Countrywide and Merrill Lynch, Bank of America hedged on answering, only
saying that "all options will be evaluated" and that they "plan to have
a substantial position in China Construction Bank for a long time to
come."
Commenting on Merrill Lynch's brokers, Lewis said that a stay-bonus is
"something we have the capacity to do. We plan to do something, because
they are the crown jewel of the company. ... The sweet spot for Merrill
is [BofA's] client group. The financial advisors need to get ready to
receive a lot of referrals."
- George White
See story on TheDeal.com
Comments
Another financial enterprise of the Pope in the U.S. is Bank of America. They have done a fairly good jon to conceal the Vatican ownership. They paid for a puff piece book, called, "Biography of A Bank- The Story of Bank of America N.T. and S.A." by Marquis James and Bessie Rowland James. Published 1954 by Harper & Brothers, and more or less the standard reference work on the bank's history.
They would have you believe that Bank of America National Trust and Savings Association was at the time of the book "the largest bank in the world". Bank mergers now occurring so rapidly, it is hard to say which is NOW the world's largest Bank. They would further have you believe that this money ship, up to 1930 called Bank of Italy, was founded by Amadeo Peter Giannini. And that the Bank was able to spread out all over the world because Giannini was so nice in helping people following the 1906 earthquake in San Francisco. They were kept out of being a New York money center bank by the agent and front for the British Monarchy, J.P.Morgan & Company.
By way of that book and the publicity flacks that followed over the years, Bank of America is supposedly owned principally by numerous of their small account holders. A fairy tale supreme. By the 1970s, Bank America, the holding company, was owned principally by the Vatican and the Jesuits, the Pope's clever army who occassionally see fit to rebuff the Pontiff. In the 1970s, the ownership broadened out to include the French Rothschilds, wrongly identified by know-nothings as "Jewish bankers", actually very Pro-Vatican into many joint finances not exactly compatible with ordinary Jews or the State of Israel.
By the early 1990s, Bank America stock was steadily declining. More numerous than the traditional Italian and Sicilian mafia, the Japanese underworld, the Yakuza, bought their way into Bank America, becoming a major joint owner. The Yakuza now owns most every bank headquartered in California. The book "Yakuza" by Dubro and Kaplan, tells a lot about the Japanese mafia. In Osaka, Japan, the Yakuza is actually an adjunct of the local police. According to a discussion by the authors on a radio program, more than half of the new buildings built downtown Chicago in the 1980s are owned by the Yakuza. Later in the 1990s, Bank of America and the Giannini family merged their interests publicly with Continental Bank, although the Chicago-based and San Francisco-based money ships had been more or less joined at the hip privately long before that. The office buildings in which are also housed the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, are reportedly bankrupt because of low occupancy but owned reportedly by the Yakuza.
The Medici created a lucrative partnership with another medieval power, the Catholic Church. In what had to be one of the most ingenious enterprises of all time, the Medici bank collected 10% of your earnings for the Church. If you couldn't pay, you faced excommunication - a one-way ticket to hell.
The Pope himself had a massive overdraft, and the Medici bank became the most profitable business in Europe. By 1434, half the bank's
revenue came from the Rome "branch", which was in fact little more than a mobile bank that followed the Pope around the world.
Papal connections gave the Medici bank immense power, soon everyone wanted an account with the Pope's personal bank. On one occasion the
nomination of a new bishop was "delayed", until his father - a Cardinal - had repaid their debts to the Medici bank.
And the Medici kept ahead of their banking rivals because of theinvention of limited liability. Giovanni di Bicci had set up a
franchise system, where regional branch managers shared a stake in the business. Giovanni also banned loans to princes and kings, who were notoriously bad investments.
Consequentially, the Medici business remained in the black while its competitors lost fortunes.