Bank Of America

Some banks are finding ways to make money from mortgages despite the continuing difficulties many homeowners are having in making their home payments. The country's two biggest home lenders, Bank of America Corp. and Wells Fargo & Co., posted fourth-quarter earnings Wednesday that were bolstered by better-than-expected profits in their mortgage operations. These profits, however, had little to do with the health of the companies' mortgage portfolios, which are still generating a wave of defaults and losses for the banking giants.

The California Supreme Court unanimously overturned a billion-dollar class-action award against Bank of America Corp. on Monday, ruling that banks can collect overdraft fees from accounts in which government benefits intended for subsistence are directly deposited. The ruling threw out a 2004 verdict by a San Francisco jury that found the bank violated state law by taking fees for insufficient funds from accounts set up to receive Social Security benefits.

A few years ago, Countrywide Financial Corp. was not only the nation's biggest home lender but also highly regarded -- an "apple pie" company, as a former marketer for the Calabasas lender recalls. Linked more recently with high-risk loans, co-founder Angelo R. Mozilo's huge paydays and FBI investigations, the Countrywide name became "too toxic to resuscitate," as another expert puts it -- and a liability for Bank of America Corp., which snatched it up last year as it neared collapse.

An estimated 125,000 Californians who are struggling with risky mortgages from Countrywide Financial Corp. may get their loans modified and payments reduced under a program to be announced today. In a pact that could save mortgage holders billions of dollars, Countrywide owner Bank of America Corp. has agreed to the nation's largest loan-modification program to settle charges of lending abuse brought by California and other states.

A decade ago, big banks and thrifts began closing branches in the belief that clicks would replace bricks as customers moved their business online. But consumers weren't ready, and the experiment was soon abandoned. Now the old model may finally be changing. Bank of America Corp.

Angelo R. Mozilo struggled last week to bid farewell to No. 1 home lender Countrywide Financial Corp., the company he led for 39 years only to see it toppled by misadventures in high-risk mortgages. The usually silk-smooth Mozilo garbled words and at one point knocked over his microphone at a special shareholder meeting. Looking grim and sounding resigned, he said the era of independent home lenders like Calabasas-based Countrywide was at an end.

Kenneth D. Lewis, who became a focus of public and political outrage while presiding over Bank of America Corp.'s stunning fall from grace in the financial crisis, is stepping down as chief executive at the end of the year. Lewis, who had helped build the company into the nation's largest bank, faced widening criticism in particular for the company's acquisition of faltering giant Wall Street brokerage Merrill Lynch & Co. He joins a line of once widely admired CEOs who quit or lost their jobs in the wake of huge losses stemming from the mortgage meltdown, including the heads of Citigroup, Bear Stearns, Lehman Bros.

A.P. Giannini is remembered as the revered founder of Bank of America, but the institution that snagged Merrill Lynch & Co. in a pressure-filled takeover last weekend is very much Hugh McColl's Bank of America. McColl was the boss of Charlotte, N.C.-based NationsBank Corp. in 1998 when it swallowed up Bank of America, then based in San Francisco.

Bank of America said Tuesday that it was issuing credit cards to Spanish-speaking immigrants who may not have Social Security numbers, triggering complaints that the nation's largest retail bank is tacitly endorsing illegal immigration. The bank described the program as a pilot, limited for now to 51 branches in Los Angeles County, and said it could go national this year.

Bank of America Corp. Chief Financial Officer Joe Price assured employees Friday that the company had enough cash to finance operations for more than two years. "Market turmoil has created lingering industrywide concerns that magnify the importance of maintaining an extra level of capital to support business activities," Price said in a question-and-answer dialogue posted on the company's internal website.

Some banks are finding ways to make money from mortgages despite the continuing difficulties many homeowners are having in making their home payments. The country's two biggest home lenders, Bank of America Corp. and Wells Fargo & Co., posted fourth-quarter earnings Wednesday that were bolstered by better-than-expected profits in their mortgage operations. These profits, however, had little to do with the health of the companies' mortgage portfolios, which are still generating a wave of defaults and losses for the banking giants.

Ending a tangled succession process, Bank of America Corp. named its retail banking chief, Brian Moynihan, on Wednesday to be its new chief executive. He will assume the CEO post Jan. 1, succeeding Kenneth D. Lewis, who came under fire for his decision last year to acquire weakened Wall Street giant Merrill Lynch & Co. in a deal that required the bank to accept one of the largest infusions of federal bailout funds. Moynihan, 50, was elected unanimously by the board of the Charlotte, N.C., company after directors spent months considering other internal candidates, notably Chief Risk Officer Gregory L. Curl, as well as star bankers from other institutions.

Bank of America Corp. has received government permission to pay back $45 billion in taxpayer aid that helped the company survive the financial crisis, a step that would terminate the federal pay restrictions that have inhibited its search for a new chief. Although several banks, including JPMorgan Chase & Co. and Goldman Sachs Group Inc., have repaid capital handed out by the government last fall, Bank of America would be the first recipient of so-called extraordinary federal assistance to repay taxpayers completely.

In an ugly reminder of the depth of consumers' economic troubles, Bank of America Corp. on Friday reported a $1-billion net loss for the third quarter, much worse than Wall Street expected. The company, the country's largest retail lender, recorded an $11.7-billion expense to cover future loan losses, up from a $6.5-billion provision in the third quarter of 2008. The results pushed Bank of America's share price down 4.6% and helped trigger a down day for stocks overall. Chief Executive Kenneth D. Lewis told analysts that the bank's "credit losses may have peaked" in the third quarter, but he warned that results would "continue to be challenging" in the fourth quarter.

Bank of America Corp. owes Kenneth D. Lewis, who is quitting as its chief executive at year's end, $68.8 million on his way out the door. Lewis accumulated that amount in his 40 years of work at Bank of America and predecessor companies. Topping the list of assets is a lump-sum pension benefit that was valued at $53.2 million in the bank's last public report on his holdings. That report, in a proxy filing this year, also said Lewis, 62, had $10.6 million in deferred compensation coming his way. And he will keep 305,000 shares of restricted stock that will vest over the next few years, which, at today's stock price of $16.34, is worth about $5 million.

Kenneth D. Lewis, who became a focus of public and political outrage while presiding over Bank of America Corp.'s stunning fall from grace in the financial crisis, is stepping down as chief executive at the end of the year. Lewis, who had helped build the company into the nation's largest bank, faced widening criticism in particular for the company's acquisition of faltering giant Wall Street brokerage Merrill Lynch & Co. He joins a line of once widely admired CEOs who quit or lost their jobs in the wake of huge losses stemming from the mortgage meltdown, including the heads of Citigroup, Bear Stearns, Lehman Bros.

In a rare move, a federal judge threw out a deal in which Bank of America Corp. would have paid $33 million to settle charges that it misled shareholders about $3.6 billion in bonuses being paid to Merrill Lynch & Co. executives, contending that the punishment was too light. U.S. District Judge Jed Rakoff in New York also lashed out at federal regulators, saying they didn't dig deeply enough to determine whether Bank of America executives intentionally set out to deceive shareholders about plans to pay bonuses to employees of Merrill Lynch last year, when the bank was acquiring the Wall Street firm.

No big bank wants to be the last one in the TARP pit. On Tuesday, as Bank of America Corp. was reported to be working on a plan to repay part of its federal capital injection under the Troubled Asset Relief Program, Wells Fargo & Co. Chief Executive John Stumpf was on TV promising that Wells would be returning its TARP money soon. "We will pay it back shortly," Stumpf said in an interview with Bloomberg TV, referring to $25 billion in capital received last fall under TARP. He didn't give a date, saying repayment had to be worked out with the Federal Reserve.

Bank of America Corp. and the Securities and Exchange Commission have become unlikely allies in pressing a federal judge to approve their hoped-for legal settlement over controversial bonuses at Merrill Lynch & Co. Although their rationales differed, each implored U.S. District Judge Jed Rakoff on Monday to sign off on the $33-million accord. "The proposed settlement is fair, reasonable, adequate and squarely in the public interest," wrote David Rosenfeld, associate director of the SEC's Manhattan office.

Bank of America Corp.'s deal to pay $33 million to settle accusations that it misled shareholders about executive bonuses hit a roadblock Monday -- U.S. District Judge Jed Rakoff. The bank agreed last week to pay the money to settle a Securities and Exchange Commission lawsuit alleging that it led shareholders to believe that Merrill Lynch & Co. would not pay year-end bonuses. In fact, the bank had already approved $5.8 billion in bonuses at Merrill, which it was in the process of acquiring at the time.