Those rumors about Ken Lewis resigning or getting the boot as CEO of Bank of America Corp. (NYSE:BAC) just keep swirling and swirling. Meanwhile, Lewis, seems to already have one foot out the door.
Business Insider is reporting that
succession talks are already underway, and T
he Wall Street Journal says that Brian Moynihan is the potential successor to Lewis. Moynihan took over John Thain's role at Merrill Lynch & Co. after he was ousted. Other candidates to replace Lewis include Barbara Desoer, who is head of BofA's home loan division, and
CFO Joe Price, according to a
Wall Street Journal report. Meanwhile, bank analysts, including Rochdale Research analyst Dick Bove and Meredith Whitney, are not jumping on the bash-Ken-Lewis bandwagon, and they think he should
keep his job.
The pressure has been building for Lewis to resign or be fired since January when long time investor Jerry Finger
began urging shareholders to force Lewis to step aside and filed a proxy. Since then several other groups have been attacking Lewis' position.
Moveon.Org is petitioning Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner to fire Ken Lewis, several bloggers are calling for Lewis to step down as
The Big Picture points out, and as if that weren't enough a
Facebook Group called Fire Ken Lewis of Bank of America has started.
Lewis, who appeared in a Fox Business Network interview (video below), said he "just wants to get [the company] through this." Lewis said the idea of possibly splitting his roles of chairman and CEO: "I don't think the breakup of the chairman and the CEO is
necessarily a bad thing, but I don't think it's a good thing
necessarily either. Think about the four or five banks that had the massive
losses and insurance companies as well -- AIG, RBS, Citigroup,
UBS. They have two common characteristics in 2008: First, they
lost tens of billions of dollars, perhaps the most massive
losses in the history of the financial services industry, and
they had separate chairmen and CEOs."
It's only a matter of time before Lewis will have to step down or face a boot as pressure continues to build up. Lewis originally was planning to retire in three years or after the credit crisis. He may want to start planning early.
- Maria WoehrAlso see:
BofA's Lewis' time almost up?
He should be out...with all the jobs he is directing to India (and others) and taking US funds. BAC continues to layoff as they replace people in other countries.