Million more reasons that top off a bad year
Bank of America Corp's much-maligned acquisition of Merrill Lynch has cost its chief executive Kenneth Lewis his peace of mind, his job ... and now his salary.
The beleaguered 62-year-old agreed this week to forgo any compensation for this year on the suggestion of a government-appointed paymaster, and since he has already received about US$1 million in wages so far this year, he would write a cheque to Bank of America to pay that back, the bank's spokesman said.
It has been a trying year for Lewis. In January he announced Bank of America's first quarterly loss in almost two decades and subsequently endured harsh scrutiny for not alerting shareholders that Merrill was bogged down with billions in losses before signing off on the takeover.
He then lost his chairman's title in April after a shareholder vote and recently announced that he would retire by the end of this year amid intensifying investigations into his handling of the Merrill deal.
Then yesterday, Bank of America announced a larger than expected third-quarter loss of US$1 billion, the lender's second quarterly loss in a year.
