"Ken Lewis, Failure"

I think labeling Mr. Lewis a failure is premature. But his reputation as a business genius has taken a big hit. (A Wall Street Journal columnist adds details.)

My wife and I used to have a little Bank of America stock. But after he bought Merrill, he started talking about how big Bank of America now was and how cool it was that they were so really, really big.  It sounded like the locker room talk of high school boys.

So I sold our BAC on September 26. At $35.40/share. I'm no business genius, but that's looking like a pretty good move.

Comments

[bjk]

Bankstocks.com has been critical of gigantism in banking, and Ken Lewis in particular, for a long time.

http://bankstocks.com/ArticleViewer.aspx?ArticleID=5637&ArticleTypeID=2

The whole fiasco had nothing to do with Thain’s integrity or competence—and everything to do with Ken Lewis’s greed and ego.

Ken Lewis and Hugh McColl are egomaniacs that should never, I repeat never, have been chosen to run publicly held companies. The market never caught on to Hugh McColl’s scam, even though the stock prices of “smaller” banks significantly outperformed the behemoth he created.

[david foster]

Good call. I think a big part of successful investing is forming an opinion of a company's culture, and of the character & intelligence of the people running it. Normally this is pretty hard to accomplish, but is greatly assisted when people like Lewis do a lot of talking.

I took a short position in Sony (via puts) after Howard Stringer held forth of "synergy"--worked out pretty well..wish I'd done it on a much larger scale.

[david foster]

Also, you might be interested in this depressing post.

[david foster]

Don't know where the link went--hopefully this will work:
http://www.avc.com/a_vc/2009/01/twenty-two-years-of-job-creation-wiped-out-in-one-day.html

[JorgXMcKie]

Reminds me of James Ling in the Ling-Temko-Vaught days. (Hope I got that all spelled right.)

Big for its own sake is stupid.

[AJS]

...more proof that while many Economists may not be RICH, there are very few that are actually POOR.