by Jack Lee
If you bought Bank of America stock at the same time that Ken Lewis was appointed as CEO, you would have lost about 60% of your money. B of A was also one of the banks hardest hit by subprime loans and after the housing bubble burst they bought Countrywide and Merrill Lynch. M-L was a turkey and folks are still wondering why they did that? And for that kind of poor judgement and dismal performance Mr. Lewis’ CEO job of 8 years pays him $53,000,000 in retirement? Go figure that one!
This is so typical of the sweet deals CEO’s work out for themslves with handpicked board members that do the bosses bidding instead of being the shareholders watchdogs like their supposed to do!
Lewis is setup to get about $3.5 million a year in pension payouts for the rest of his life — at a time when people who bought the stock when he took the reins in 2001 are still suffering.
Lewis is yet another shameless example among hundreds more where a CEO running his company into the ground still gets massive rewards beyond all reason. There has to be a change here to stop this legal looting of companies or capitalism won’t last out the century.