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 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 (which reads "How long will you defend the unjust and show partiality to the wicked? ) 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." Lewis also found himself defending his paycheck against one woman who told him, "One and a half million dollars is more than enough for someone who has made two mergers that screwed the shareholders royally." Later in the discussion on his $1.5 million base salary, Lewis said that he donates more to charity than he makes, resulting in loud applause throughout the room. When asked about a board meeting on whether to go forward with the Merrill deal, a shareholder asked for more information on the discussions, to which Lewis replied, "I can't talk about that because of litigation; you're probably one of them. If you'd like to hear more, withdraw your lawsuit." But Lewis and the board did in fact have supporters in the room. One stockholder told the audience, "You are the right man, at the right time for this bank. If others don't like it, sell the stock and move on, because this is all about growing Bank of America." - George White See Bank of America annual meeting preview
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