I figured Franks and Prueher were there to attract political (or something similar) support: they were more names to look good than people who were expected to actually do corporate governance. (Not that general officers might not be competent to do corporate governance, but I’d expect them to have some knowledge of the corporate field of business; frex, banks should get officers with accounting and financial management backgrounds.)

I wonder when this will get noticed by the TradMed.

Aren’t all those links to the traditional media?

Or do you mean the worthless pundits in the TradMed? In which case, the answer is “Never”.

What you said.

Nonetheless, good catch.

Do you suppose we can look for some change in behavior from BofA now? they’ve been among the worst for consumers for quite awhile.

Bank of America was at one time a good bank. It was purchased by NationsBank Corp and went downhill from there. Hugh McColl of North Carolina, the then CEO of NationsBank, came blasting into SF as if he owned the town
and did he get a surprise. BofA had started life in SF and the entire Giannini family was respected and liked. Mr. McColl was thoroughly snubbed by the rich and famous in SF and as I recall, slunk out of town in a pout. He really was obnoxious.

“…Do you suppose we can look for some change in behavior from BofA now?…”

Maybe. They might start rounding the executive bonuses up to the next $1 million.

Well…that’s change, isn’t it?

Some of the links are to BofA press releases, and the Reuters and the NYT pieces are glorified restatements of those PR pieces.

No one seems to have noticed that the only person still serving on the Audit Committee from last year is Thomas Mays.

Put it this way: the TradMed has noticed people leaving, but doesn’t seem interested in explaining why *these* people are leaving, why *now*, under what circumstances, and why *these* replacements are being brought in.

Generally speaking, having no turnover on a board of directors is a bad thing. Likewise, complete turnover — absent some very unusual circumstances — is also a bad thing. There’s no institutional memory, which makes long-term planning difficult.

I’d say we’re looking at very high turnover under a lot of very unusual circumstances, but there’s little media interest in parsing out the details.

“Generally speaking, having no turnover on a board of directors is a bad thing. Likewise, complete turnover — absent some very unusual circumstances — is also a bad thing. There’s no institutional memory, which makes long-term planning difficult.”

Very astute observation. I’ve personally observed board members hanging around for ten years, or more. What tends to happen in these circumstances is that the board members rubber-stamp whatever the executives in the company want. Oversight is, therefore, right out the window. Board turnover should be legally regulated and enforced. Not sure if five years is the right number, but it’s good place to start a discussion, IMO.

FWIW, the Charlotte Observer (via McClatchy) seems to have noticed – although they have already let the article push off the McClatchy front page…

BoA was pressured into changing its board by the government. This WSJ article from May 15 notes a request by bank examiners to this effect:

http://online.wsj.com/article/…..22687.html

BoA was I believe dragging its feet and apparently got a push. This article gets the rationale for the changes about right:

While the most obvious reason for forcing new board members into the large banks may be to encourage replacing their CEOs, that may not be the main reason. If the government does not have the time and personnel to constantly examine balance sheet risk or wants the perception that it is not meddling in the affairs of public companies, finding directors with extensive financial firm management may accomplish the goal of having de facto examiners in each institution.

http://247wallst.com/2009/05/1…..directors/

The problems at Bank of American started when Hugh McColl retired. Hugh McColl was an old school conservative banker who tended to support local Democrats. His success in making North Carolina National Bank (NCNB) into first a strong regional bank and then into a nationwide major bank could have gone to his head to the point that he was not ready for the Friends of Giannini to treat him as a rube.

Since his retirement, BofA has moved into more and more questionable areas of finance, picking up investment companies and insurance companies in order to create a “full-service” financial institution (mimicking Sandy Weill essentially).

McColl, from McColl, SC, was the son of a country banker (and descendant of the developer of the town) and had grown up during the Depression. He was not prone to go-go finance. He knew where that had led. This is not his doing.

Oh, I get your point. Good catch. I thought you were referring to the overall story.

interesting sentence construction on the current Huffpo homepage:

“Three More Bank of America Directors Resigned”

The Harper’s Index for this month notes that Canadian banks did not require one red cent of bailout money.

You may have seen this:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08…..=1&hp

I find a false choice drawn here. Why is there a delicate choice to be made here because government is a shareholder and a corporation promised a bonus? Why is it a problem? The guy the bank wants to give the bonus to might leave if he doesn’t get it. Why is that a problem? This is a bank group that threatened (with its corporate bretheran) to dissolve the US economy because it was “too big to fail”. It should be cut down to size. The banks’ employees are as expendable as the factory workers who are told they no longer have health care, a 401K or a job when their management screws up. Let the man work for someone else. It is not a question of what he “deserves”. He is riding on the wrong horse. If he is so good, he can get a better, more reliable, more adept, more honest and more cooperative horse.