|
Nathan'ette
Burdine's
The
Nyle Magazine
Home
News Politics The Economy Health Education The
Ma'at
NB's
The
Nyle Magazine
Monday, October 08, 2012
The
Economy
Published September 24, 2011-Updated October 18,
2011
"Bank of America is Spiraling Down”
by Nathan’ette
Burdine-Follow on
Twitter@nbnylemagazine
The highlighted sign that Bank of America (BOA) is
spiraling down was the report that JP Morgan and Chase was acquiring BOA.
Bank of America denied the reports, but such denial is not uncommon and
it doesn’t mean the report didn’t have any validity to it.
Bank of America tried downplaying the reports by stating that it had the
necessary funds to function. However,
BOA’s attempt to downplay the severity of the situation was quickly
overshadowed by its down share price of $6.90 compared to JP Morgan Chase’s
$35.60 share price and the fact that BOA accepted a $5 billion dollar investment
from Warren Buffet’s company, Berkshire Hathaway.
Basically, the down stock and Buffet’s investment were red signals that
BOA was in dire need of help. Usually
in these cases, these reports come to light because the troubled bank is looking
for someone to plug the leaking hole in its financial pipeline and prevent a
bust from occurring. Such was the
case with failed banking giants Bear Stearns, Merrill Lynch, and Lehman
Brothers.
Like
BOA, these companies denied reports that they were in financial trouble and were
seeking financial assistance. Their
stocks fluctuated up and down and were not at its normal highs and investors
begin pulling out. The failed
banking giants received bailout loans from the government, but it wasn’t
enough to sustain them. The depth
of the financial wound was too deep to repair.
Lehman Brothers filed for bankruptcy, JP Morgan and Chase took over Bear
Stearns, while BOA took over Merrill Lynch and the mortgage giant Countrywide.
Ironically, the companies BOA acquired are the ones some financial
analyst give credit to for BOA’s downwards spiral.
In 2008, BOA purchased Countrywide Financial Corporation.
Countrywide Financial Corporation was the countries largest mortgage
lender, but the bad mortgages brought the company down and into the hands of
Bank of America. This resulted in
Countrywide’s problems transferring over to Bank of America.
BOA attempted to solve this problem by selling the mortgages, but it soon
backfired in the form of lawsuits. AIG
alleged that BOA sold it overvalued mortgages and sued BOA for greater than $10
billion dollars. According to Bloomberg’s
article “BONY, Schneiderman feud over mortgage-bond pact,” New York State
Attorney General Eric Schneiderman sued BOA and its trustee, Bank of New York
Mellon, for violating New York’s law in a settlement requiring BOA to pay $8.5
billion to settle claims for investments in Countrywide Financial Mortgage
bonds. Unfortunately, BOA’s bad
investments didn’t end with Countrywide Financial Corp.
Like
its purchase of Countrywide, BOA’s purchase of Merrill Lynch was soured from
the beginning. The Wall Street
Journal writer Heidi N. Moore wrote an article titled “Bank of
America-Merrill Lynch: A $50
Billion Deal from Hell, ” describing BOA’s acquisition of Merrill Lynch.
Moore pointed to how before Merrill Lynch’s former CEO, John Thain,
jumped ship he did as much as possible to further dilute the worth of BOA’s
new acquisition by purchasing a $87,000 rug, giving out $25 million dollar
packages to individuals he hired, and giving his staff bonuses worth billions of
dollars. And once the acquisition
was approved, BOA shares begin dropping tremendously. Investors lost confidence in the company and begin pulling
out as stock prices plummeted. On
September 12, 2008, the Friday before the acquisition, BOA stock closed at
$33.74. While on the date of the
acquisition, September 15, 2008, BOA stocks closed at $26.55. Hence, BOA’s purchase of Merrill Lynch resulted in a
downturn in BOA’s closing stock prices. And
this downturn was even more evident on January 21, 2009 after the stocks closed
at $6.68. So from September 12,
2008 to January 21, 2009, BOA closing stock prices took approximately an 80%
dive. According to the Associated
Press’ writer Christina Rexrode’s article “Struggling Bank of America
shakes up exec ranks,” in 2010, CEO Ken Lewis was forced to step down as
BOA’s CEO after his purchase of a failing Merrill Lynch.
Brian Moynihan took over in early 2010 and has been busy changing his top
officials and cutting the workforce. Salli
Kraw Check (head of global wealth and investment management) and Joe Price
(president of the Consumer Banking division) will be leaving, while David
Darnell and Tom Montag will be Co-CEO’s.
On August 19, 2011, it was reported that BOA was cutting 10,000 or
greater of its workforce. Recently,
that number has risen to approximately 40,000.
Whenever
something gets too big, it falls down because it has accumulated too much weight for
its base too support. This is the
case with banks like Bear Stearns, Lehman Brothers, Merrill Lynch, Countrywide
Financial, and now Bank of America. Bank
of America added an extra weight, Countrywide Financial and Merrill Lynch, onto
its base and has not been able to support the problems that came along with the
extra weight. As a result, lawsuits
from individuals, corporations, to states, and the federal government began to
mount. These lawsuits resulted in
more losses for the company and have possibly reached a point whereby BOA may
have no other choice but to turn to its rival JP Morgan and Chase for a
lifeline.
Email-nathanette.burdine@thenylemagazine.com
|