Bank of America history

Answer 1

he Bank of America organization that exists today was the result of a merger between San Francisco-based BankAmerica and NationsBank, previously known as North Carolina National Bank (before its name was abbreviated to "NCNB"). In 1998, NationsBank acquired BankAmerica and renamed the corporation "Bank of America", making Charlotte, North Carolina its headquarters. == The Bank of Italy was founded in San Francisco by Amadeo Giannini in 1904, based on catering to immigrants. "A.P." was raised by the Fava/Stanghellini family when his father was shot while trying to collect on a $10.00 debt. When the 1906 San Francisco earthquake struck, Giannini was able to get all of the deposits out of the bank building and away from the fires. In 1922, Giannini established Bank of America and Italy in Italy by buying Banca dell'Italia Meridionale, itself only established in 1918. In the late 1920s, Giannini approached Orra E. Monnette, President and founder of Bank of America, Los Angeles, about a merger between the two entities. The Los Angeles based bank had exhibited strong growth throughout the 1920s, due in part to its success in developing an advanced branch banking system. The merger was completed in early 1929 and took the name Bank of America. The combined company was headed by Giannini with Monnette serving as co-Chair. == Giannini sought to build a national bank, expanding into most of the western states as well as into the insurance industry, under the aegis of his holding company, Transamerica Corporation. The passage of the Bank Holding Company Act of 1956, prohibited banks from owning non-banking subsidiaries such as insurance companies. Bank of America and Transamerica were separated, with the latter company continuing in the insurance business. However, federal banking regulators prohibited Bank of America's interstate banking activity, and Bank of America's domestic banks outside California were forced into a separate company that eventually became First Interstate Bancorp, which was acquired by Wells Fargo and Company in 1996. It was not until the 1980s with a change in federal banking legislation and regulation that Bank of America was again able to expand its domestic consumer banking activity outside California. These technologies also allowed credit cards to be linked directly to individual bank accounts. In 1958, the bank introduced the BankAmericard, which changed its name to VISA in 1975.[12] A consortium of other California banks came up with Master Charge (now MasterCard) in order to compete with BankAmericard. == Bank of America Corporate Center, located in the center of uptown Charlotte, North Carolina.

Following the passage of the Bank Holding Company Act of 1967, BankAmerica Corporation was established for the purpose of owning Bank of America and its subsidiaries. BankAmerica expanded outside California in 1983 with its acquisition of Seafirst Corporation of Seattle, Washington, and its wholly owned banking subsidiary, Seattle-First National Bank. Seafirst was at risk of seizure by the federal government after becoming insolvent due to a series of bad loans to the oil industry. BankAmerica continued to operate its new subsidiary as Seafirst rather than Bank of America until the 1998 merger with NationsBank.ha BankAmerica was dealt huge losses in 1986 and 1987 by the placement of a series of bad loans in the Third World, particularly in Latin America. The company fired its CEO, Sam Armacost. Though Armacost blamed the problems on his predecessor, A.W. (Tom) Clausen, Clausen was appointed to replace Armacost. The losses resulted in a huge decline of BankAmerica stock, making it vulnerable to a hostile takeover. First Interstate Bancorp of Los Angeles (which had originated from banks once owned by BankAmerica), launched such a bid in the fall of 1986, although BankAmerica rebuffed it, mostly by selling operations. It sold its FinanceAmerica subsidiary to Chrysler and the brokerage firm Charles Schwab and Co. back to Mr. Schwab. It also sold Bank of America and Italy to Deutsche Bank. By the time of the 1987 stock market crash, BankAmerica's share price had fallen to $8, but by 1992 it had rebounded mightily to become one of the biggest gainers of that half-decade. BankAmerica's next big acquisition came in 1992. The company acquired its California rival, Security Pacific Corporation and its subsidiary Security Pacific National Bank in California and other banks in Arizona, Idaho, Oregon and Washington (which Security Pacific had acquired in a series of acquisitions in the late 1980s). This was, at the time, the largest bank acquisition in history. Federal regulators, however, forced the sale of Security Pacific's Washington subsidiary, Rainier Bank, as the combination of Seafirst and Rainier would have given BankAmerica too large a share of the market in that state. The Rainier Bank branches were divided and sold off to West One Bancorp (now U.S. Bancorp) and KeyBank.[13] Later that year, BankAmerica expanded into Nevada by acquiring Valley Bank of Nevada. In 1994, BankAmerica acquired the Continental Illinois National Bank and Trust Co. of Chicago, which had become federally owned as part of the same oil industry debacle emanating from Oklahoma City's Penn Square Bank, that had brought down numerous financial institutions including Seafirst. At the time, no bank had the resources to bail out Continental, so the federal government operated the bank for nearly a decade. Illinois at that time regulated branch banking extremely heavily, so Bank of America Illinois was a single-unit bank until the 21st century. BankAmerica moved its national lending department to Chicago in an effort to establish a financial beachhead in the region. These mergers helped BankAmerica Corporation to once again become the largest U.S. bank holding company in terms of deposits, but the company fell to second place in 1997 behind fast-growing NationsBank Corporation, and to third in 1998 behind North Carolina's First Union Corp. In 1998, BankAmerica was purchased by North Carolina-based NationsBank, and changed the headquarters to Charlotte, North Carolina..... In 1997, BankAmerica lent D. E. Shaw & Co., a large hedge fund, $1.4bn so that the hedge fund would run various businesses for the bank. However, D.E. Shaw suffered significant loss after the 1998 Russia bond default. BankAmerica was acquired by NationsBank later that year in October. The purchase of BankAmerica Corp. by the NationsBank Corporation was the largest bank acquisition in history at that time. While the deal was technically a purchase of BankAmerica Corporation by NationsBank, the deal was structured as merger with NationsBank renamed to Bank of America Corporation, and Bank of America NT&SA, changing its name to Bank of America, N.A. as the remaining legal bank entity. The bank still operates under Federal Charter 13044 which was granted to Giannini's Bank of Italy on March 1, 1927. However, SEC filings before 1998 are listed under NationsBank, not BankAmerica. Following the US$64.8 billion acquisition of BankAmerica by NationsBank, the resulting Bank of America had combined assets of US$570 billion, as well as 4,800 branches in 22 states. Despite the mammoth size of the two companies, federal regulators insisted only upon the divestiture of 13 branches in New Mexico, in towns that would be left with only a single bank following the combination. This is because branch divestitures are only required if the combined company will have a larger than 25 percent FDIC deposit market share in a particular state or 10 percent deposit market share overall. In 2001, Bank of America CEO and chairman Hugh McColl stepped down and named Ken Lewis as his successor. Lewis's greater focus on financial discipline and efficiency contrasted greatly with the expansionary mergers and acquisition strategy of his predecessor. == In 2004, Bank of America accounted it will purchase Boston-based bank FleetBoston Financial for $47 billion in cash and stock.[14] By merging with Bank of America, all of its banks and branches were given the Bank of America logo. At the time of merger, FleetBoston was the seventh largest bank in United States with $197 billion in assets, over 20 million customers and revenue of $12 billion.[15] == On 30 June 2005, Bank of America announced it would purchase credit card giant MBNA for $35 billion in cash and stock. The Federal Reserve Board gave final approval to the merger on 15 December 2005, and the merger closed on 1 January 2006. The acquisition of MBNA provided Bank of America a leading credit card issuer at home and abroad. The combined Bank of America Card Services organization, including the former MBNA-had more than 40 million U.S. accounts and nearly $140 billion in outstanding balances. == In May 2006, Bank of America and Banco Itaú (Investimentos Itaú S.A.) entered into an acquisition agreement through which Itaú agreed to acquire BankBoston's operations in Brazil and was granted an exclusive right to purchase Bank of America's operations in Chile and Uruguay. A deal was signed in August 2006 under which Itaú agreed to purchase Bank of America's operations in Chile and Uruguay. Prior to the transaction, BankBoston's Brazilian operations included asset management, private banking, a credit card portfolio, and small, middle-market, and large corporate segments. It had 66 branches and 203,000 clients in Brazil. BankBoston in Chile had 44 branches and 58,000 clients and in Uruguay it had 15 branches. In addition, there was a credit card company, OCA, in Uruguay, which had 23 branches. BankBoston N.A. in Uruguay, together with OCA, jointly served 372,000 clients. While the BankBoston name and trademarks were not part of the transaction, as part of the sale agreement, they cannot be used by Bank of America in Brazil, Chile or Uruguay following the transactions. Hence, the BankBoston name has disappeared from Brazil, Chile and Uruguay. The Itaú stock received by Bank of America in the transactions has allowed Bank of America's stake in Itaú to reach 11.51%. Banco Boston do Brazil had been founded in 1947. == On 20 November 2006, Bank of America announced the purchase of The United States Trust Company for $3.3 billion, from the Charles Schwab Corporation. US Trust had about $100 billion of Assets Under Management and over 150 years of experience. The deal closed 1 July 2007.[16] == On September 14, 2007, Bank of America won approval from the Federal Reserve to acquire ABN AMRO N.A. and LaSalle Bank Corporation from Netherlands's ABN AMRO for $21 billion. With this combination Bank of America will have 1.7 trillion in assets. A Dutch court blocked the sale until it was later approved in July. The acquisition was completed on October 1, 2007. The deal increased Bank of America's presence in Illinois, Michigan, and Indiana by 411 branches, 17,000 commercial bank clients, 1.4 million retail customers and 1,500 ATMs. Bank of America has become the largest bank in the Chicago market with 197 offices and 14% of the deposit share, passing up JPMorgan Chase. LaSalle Bank and LaSalle Bank Midwest branches adopted the Bank of America name on 5 May 2008.[17] == On August 23, 2007 the company announced a $2 billion repurchase agreement for Countrywide Financial. This purchase of preferred stock was arranged to provide a return on investment of 7.25% per annum and provided the option to purchase common stock at a price of $18 per share.[18] Following that initial investment, on January 11, 2008, Bank of America announced that they would buy Countrywide Financial for $4.1 billion.[19] This acquisition, which closed on July 1, 2008, gave the bank a substantial market share of the mortgage business, and access to Countrywide's expertise, technology, and employees for servicing mortgages.[20] The acquisition was seen as preventing the potential of bankruptcy for Countrywide. Countrywide denied that it was close to bankruptcy. Countrywide provides mortgage servicing for nine million mortgages valued at $1.4 trillion USD as of December 31, 2007.[21] However, Countrywide is under FBI investigation due to possible fraud in home loans and mortages, therefore Bank of America states that by 2009 they will be "officially" affiliated to Countrywide.[22] On July 1, 2008, Bank of America Corporation completed its purchase of Countrywide Financial Corporation, which makes the corporation the nation's leading mortgage originator and servicer controlling between 20 to 25 percent of the home loan market.[23] The deal was structured to merge Countrywide with the Red Oak Merger Corporation, which Bank of America created as an independent subsidiary. It has been speculated that the deal was structured this way to prevent a potential bankruptcy stemming from large losses in Countrywide hurting the parent organization by keeping Countrywide bankruptcy remote.[24] == On September 15, 2008, Bank of America announced its intentions to purchase Merrill Lynch & Co., Inc. in an all-stock deal worth approximately $ 50 billion, about 86% of the Bank of America stock price at close. This acquisition will make Bank of America the largest financial services company in the world.[25] Temasek Holdings, the largest shareholder of Merrill Lynch & Co., Inc., will become one of the largest shareholders of Bank of America.[26] Shareholders of both companies approved the acquisition on December 5, 2008, and the deal closed January 1, 2009.[27] The Bank, in its January 16, 2009 earnings release, revealed massive losses at Merrill Lynch in the fourth quarter, which necessitated an emergency government bailout of the Bank to keep it solvent. Merrill recorded an operating loss of $21.5 billion in the quarter, mainly in its sales and trading operations, led by Tom Montag. The Bank also disclosed it tried to abandon the deal in December after the extent of Merrill's trading losses surfaced, but was compelled to complete the merger by the U.S. government. The Bank's stock price sank to $7.18, its lowest level in 17 years, after announcing earnings and the Merrill mishap. The market capitalization of Bank of America, including Merrill Lynch, was then $45 billion, less than the $50 billion it offered for Merrill just four months earlier, and down $108 billion from the merger announcement.

Source: Wiki - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bank_of_America