Bank of America Airbrushing History on Its Website?

Uh-oh. On Bank of America’s website, Ken Lewis’s biography could stand some updating:

During his tenure, Bank of America has improved customer satisfaction significantly across every major line of business; annual revenue has increased from $33 billion to $66 billion; annual profit has increased from $7.5 billion to $15 billion; assets have increased from $642 billion to $1.7 trillion; market capitalization has grown from $74 billion to $183 billion; and total annual shareholder returns (including stock price growth plus dividends) have averaged 13.3%, doubling peers, the KBW Banks Index, the S&P 500 and the Dow Jones Industrial Average over the same period. [Emph. added]

Not anymore. Many of the numbers above are, as people in the Nixon administration used to like to say, “no longer operative.” In particular, that $15 billion in annual income was really just $4 billion in 2008. BofA’s erstwhile $183 billion market value, meanwhile, is now $38 billion. And—to get to the number that shareholders are likely most familiar with—BofA’s stock hasn’t returned 13.3% annually, on average, since Lewis became CEO in 2001. Rather, it has dropped by 18% per year, on average.

I’ll email the PR people at BofA to flag the errors for them. You should, too. I somehow suspect, though, that rather than updating the paragraph above, they’ll save themselves a lot of hassle and embarrassing phone conversations, and cut it altogether. Can’t say as I blame them. . . .

Update: I say it would be understandable if BofA’s PR folks simply cut the paragraph above rather than revise it to include up-to-date numbers. But why should they cut it? If the data was deemed vital enough to include when it made Lewis’s track record look good, it’s presumably still vital enough to include even though it now shows that Lewis could be one of the most incompetent executives in the banking industry. Still, when BofA does get around to revising the bio, does anyone doubt that references to things like market value and shareholder return will be expunged? It’ll be just another small-scale indication of the company's propensity to obfuscate and mislead--not to mention yet another sign of Ken Lewis’s raving egomania.

Comments

[sstro]

BofA should be dead. Anyone who does business with them in the future can look forward to getting screwed. I will never do business (if I can help it) with any TARP bank directly. Let their buddies in Washington keep giving them money, soon that well will dry up to as more Americans get fed up with leaders who steal from them at every turn.

2009 Feb 03 09:23 AM

[notsosmart]

im small potatoes but i stopped doing business with them years ago when i had a" high yield "checking that paid 1%.LOL

2009 Feb 03 01:50 PM

[QuitTheHate]

I feel stupider for reading this. Thanks for relaying the news that the economy is doing poorly! Investment banking and adjustable rate irresponsible mortgages were awful, but Bank of America didn't participate in the greedy acts of either. You can cry all you want about them receiving government assistance, but I doubt you would want to see how much assistance would be needed if Countrywide had been running under the same management. Further, I would doubt you would want to see Merrill running under the same management. Ken Lewis has shown great responsibility and leadership through his actions in a high profit dark market and through that he was able to increase the company's customer base and wealth management. If you want to read a real news story then take a look at how Lehman was begging Bank of America for a bailout. The moral to the story is that negative media makes more money.

2009 Feb 03 04:25 PM

[InvestorVoice]

InvestorVoice.co.uk has checked the BofA website. Ken Lewis' biography has been changed. No mention of revenue nor market cap growth anymore.

The real issue here is executive hubris. See www.investorvoice.co.u.../

I cannot find any other CEO's biography with such excessive self promotion.

2009 Feb 13 01:03 PM