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A short time ago, shareholders of Merrill Lynch (MER) approved the firm’s “merger” with Bank of America (BAC), according to this brief snippet from the WSJ, “ending the Wall Street firms storied 94-year history as an independent company.” But things aren’t all that bleak, judging by a careful reading of some of the recent merger [...]
Yesterday, Sovereign Bancorp (SOV), a 750-branch bank focused on the Northeast corridor that’s had its share of troubles, announced a series of management changes, including the departure of its CEO, Joseph P. Campanelli by the end of the day. The release, as these sorts of things always do, noted that Campanelli was leaving to “pursue [...]
Yesterday afternoon, after the $700 billion bailout legislation failed, Hank Paulson came out of the White House and said, “We have experienced significant turmoil in our financial markets in the last few days, including the collapse of Washington Mutual and Wachovia here and the failure of two major financial institutions in Europe.” Of course, Wachovia [...]
Less than three weeks after WaMu CEO Kerry Killinger “retired” from the bank, it was seized by federal regulators, making it the largest bank failure in this nation’s history. What remains was sold to JP Morgan Chase (JPM), which wasted no time putting up a welcome banner on WaMu’s web site. As footnoted regulars know, [...]
As most footnoted regulars know, I have a soft-spot for Florida banks, probably because I spent several years early in my career chasing them down and know how dumb some of the folks who run these banks can be, especially when it comes to real estate. (Coast Financial, by the way, was acquired last summer [...]
