He’s baack! John Thain takes reins at CIT Group…
Happier Days
Hardly seems fair does it? Ken Lewis loses his spot at BofA, gets civil complaints filed against him by Cuomo, gets grilled by CongressCritters as attorneys drool on their TVs hoping for a magical shareholder class action suit, and Thain walks into a new CEO suite with hardly a scratch.
Vagaries of the dice toss or a deal with Beelzebub? Maybe it’s just that Ken is from Charlotte and John is from The Street? Must be his ‘Goldman’ parachute, heh. FD-MiM are Merrill/BofA shareholders….Our multitude of posts on the BofA Merrill merger and post merger brouhaha here..
Mashup by BluTaiger
John Thain has been chosen to run lender CIT, after a year in which he was ousted from Merrill Lynch and the business lender teetered on the brink. Thain will start as chairman and chief executive immediately, CIT said late yesterday, replacing interim head Peter Tobin.
Thain, 54, led Merrill for a year, when he was shoved out in January 2009 after the company was bought by Bank of America in a controversial merger. The former president of Goldman Sachs and the New York Stock Exchange has been out of work since. CIT, a major business lender that expanded into subprime mortgages and student loans during the boom, filed for bankruptcy last year after the government refused to give it a second infusion of rescue funds.
It emerged from bankruptcy in December, after managing to unload more than $10 billion in debt. “Much has been accomplished in recent months to position CIT for renewed success,” Thain said. CIT executives face compensation restrictions because it received funds from the Troubled Asset Relief Program. According to reports, Thain will receive $500,000 in salary and $5.5 million worth of restricted CIT shares. He could also earn another $1.5 million in restricted shares.
That’s a pittance compared to what he was making at Merrill Lynch. When he joined, the bank agreed to a $44 million compensation package…
You know who should pay the shareholder suits? STANLEY O’NEIL, he destroyed Merrill IMO….
Update: Gibbs does not deny: Rudy! ‘The David Paterson Problem’: Team TOTUS asks Paterson to withdraw from NY Gov race…
Update 4: Gibbs does not deny:
– He didn’t dispute reports that the White House has asked New York Gov. David Paterson to drop his reelection campaign. “Well, look, I think everybody understands the tough job that every elected official has right now in addressing many of the problems that we have,” Gibbs said. “I think people are aware of the tough situation that the governor of New York is in. I wouldn’t add a lot to what you’ve read except this is a decision that he’s going to make.”
Gibbs dismissed a suggestion that Obama risked blowback by meddling in local affairs, saying other presidents had done the same and backlash was simply one of the “hazards of the job.”
Update 3: 9/21: NYPost comments that the NY State Legislature will now be brought to a standstill as pols refuse to take painful votes to get the budget in line for Paterson since he is a ‘dead man walking’. Thanks TOTUS for making sure NY gets absolutely nothing done until next year.
NYPost also asks is TOTUS pushing Paterson out to try and stop a Rudy entry and Rudy win, thereby setting Rudy up for a ’12 challenge to TOTUS? You betcha! My mom would vote for Rudy in a hot second!
(…)But most importantly, Obama realizes that the only thing that could stand between his own re-election in 2012 and a direct challenge from former mayor and potential Republican gubernatorial and presidential contender Rudy Giuliani — the man who defeated New York City’s first black mayor — is Attorney General Cuomo, the state’s most popular politician and one who unfailingly beats Giuliani in the polls.
The unelected Paterson, who polls show is easy prey to a Giuliani candidacy, is, of course, a very different story….
Update 2: Breaking on WSJ Chyron Lazio to enter NY Gov race. Now it would be doubly fun were we to get HRC running, oh if only. But whomever takes this job has a hexx of a mess waiting for them and a recalcitrant state legislature full of nincompoops IMO…
Update: WH calls FOX to whine and say TOTUS didn’t make the call on Paterson himself, it was just some high level WH person, you know how that is, lol. More of the now infamous WH crybabies Chris Wallace laughed about Friday..how WEAK!
Pfft! and BWAAAHAAAAHAA!!Sounds like Paterson got the same lesson all the peeps who wanted to run against Gillibrand got, there is no such thing as having a friend in high places when it is TOTUS. Anyone can go unda da bus at any time.
National Democratic Party leaders have asked Gov. David Paterson to consider withdrawing from the 2010 governor’s race.(…) The sources said it was unclear what Gov. Paterson would do in response.
The New York Times, which originally reported the request on its Web site, said that it was President Barack Obama who asked Gov. Paterson to withdraw.
Party leaders in Washington have become concerned about Gov. Paterson’s political weakness, believing the governor’s office is too important to risk losing, one of the state Democratic advisers told the AP on Saturday.
And it sounds like they lowered the boom now so TOTUS didn’t have to do it in person next week. Bock Bock Barack!
A message about the race was delivered from top national Democrats at a dinner Friday night with Gov. Paterson…The Democratic leaders spoke of a concern referred to as the “David Paterson problem,” the adviser said.
The request has been in the works for a couple weeks, and the intention was to wait until after the state’s primary to deliver it, the other adviser said.…Mr. Obama is scheduled to be in upstate New York that day, when he is expected to deliver a vision of economic revival to students at the Hudson Valley Community College in Troy.
That’s our TOTUS, delivering VISIONS of economic revival instead of, you know, actual ECONOMIC REVIVAL! A regular Sugar Plum Fairy is TOTUS.
I think they are clearly RACIST! Sorry had to say it, recall Paterson claimed racism was behind his awful poll numbers
…Gov. David A. Paterson said on Friday that the chorus of people who believe he should not run for election next year want to keep him out of the race because he is black.
“We’re not in the post-racial period,” said Mr. Paterson..
In an interview with NY1, Rep. Charles Rangel warns state Attorney General Andrew Cuomo not to challenge Gov. David Paterson in a Democratic primary next year, saying it could create “racial polarization” in the state and be “devastating” to New York Democrats.
“You cannot support the governor, prepare for re-election, and at the same time say that you’re keeping your options open for a primary,” Rangel said of Cuomo.
“I think that there might be an inclination for racial polarization in a primary in the state of New York,” Rangel told political reporter Michael Scotto. “And since we have most African-Americans registered as Democrats, and since you would be making an appeal for Democrats, it would be devastating in my opinion.”
What a bunch of loons we have running things seriously. It seems Team TOTUS spends a LOT of time worrying about elections and not a lot of time creating JOBS for Americans.
*Cyndi Lauper courtesy of miuzk
Update: CNBC reports Lewis to step down by end of year; Cuomo/BofA Smackdown: It’s On! (again)
Update 09/30: Charlie Gasparino is reporting that Ken Lewis has been pushed out (the stmt says he stepped down but I call BS)!! This is HUGE! WOTS was he had TOTAL BACKING OF THE BOARD! Recall BofA is centred in Charlotte, NC far from the Wall St shenanigans but Lewis got sucked into the ‘eeeevil banker’ canard PLUS the added bonus of ‘hide the bonuses’ with Thain. I for one would never want Andy Cuomo on my trail if I had a blessed thing to hide!
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(Reminder FD- MiM are shareholders in both BofA and were MER shareholders as well pre merger)
Bank of America’s CEO Ken Lewis, the embattled head of the nation’s biggest bank, told the board he plans to step down by the end of the year.
Lewis wasn’t asked to step down and the decision was not the result of any regulatory action, sources told CNBC. No successor has been named yet….
Original post after the break:
Update: Paulson to Lewis on BofA Merrill Merger, An Offer He Couldn’t Refuse?
Update: In Depth View via Bloomberg:
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Our previous posts on the Clash of these Bank, Trading and Finance Titans here
Disclaimer: MiM are Merrill/BofA shareholders, our view is pretty damn biased as a result..
Was Timmeh in the room and in the loop? He was head of NY Fed then, betcha he was in the loop…..
Andrew Cuomo has his teeth in and he has that bulldog lockjaw thing happenin’ as he gets ready to run in 2010, Cuomo v Giuliani would be sweet!
Ken Lewis is SOL, shareholders are rightfully pixxed as all get out if he let Hank bully him into waiving withdrawing form the merger under MAC provisions. Material Adverse Change, which is what the MER losses were at that point according to Lewis’ testimony to Cuomo
…BUT even if he stood up to Hank and pushed ahead and went to court in DE, Hank is right in what he told Lewis anyway, DE is a tough fight on MAC, and it would have likely turned out BofA could NOT withdraw under MAC as with proper DUE DILIGENCE they should have KNOWN these losses were coming…either way Lewis is Fired CEO Walking…
Moderate in the Middle 