Bank of America CEO Brian Moynihan could soon find himself out of a job, says Tony Plath, banking and finance professor at the University of North Carolina-Charlotte.
Mark Calvey Senior Reporter – San Francisco Business Times
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Bank of America
CEO Brian Moynihan will soon exit from the nation’s second-largest bank, predicts Tony Plath, a widely followed banking and finance professor at the University of North Carolina-Charlotte.
“Brian’s days are numbered,” Plath said, pointing to a recent Wall Street Journal story that discussed Moynihan’s struggles.
“The board bears a lot of responsibility for what’s gone wrong,” Plath said in a lengthy interview with my colleague Adam O’Daniel, finance editor at the Charlotte Business Journal. It’s recommended reading for anyone following banking.
“Let’s face it,” Plath said of Moynihan. “He doesn’t order lunch without checking with the board.”
Plath says he’s not quite sure on the timing of Moynihan’s departure, but he’s confident how the bank will set the stage for his departure.
“They’ll do it with numbers that overwhelm the market. They’ll use that as the straw that breaks the camel’s back,” Plath said.
Moynihan’s successor will have his hands full at California’s largest bank.
“There’s nobody in that company that really understands it,” Plath says. “It has been put together in so many pieces over the years, with so many divisions and tribes, that it’s just a really tough company to manage.”
Plath also had some criticism for San Francisco-based Wells Fargo
and its focus on retail banking.
“Their focus is a little too heavy on community banking and retail banking,” Plath said. “You don’t want to concentrate in just one business.”
He says that’s why Chairman and CEO John Stumpf kept the investment banking business the bank picked up with its 2008 purchase of Charlotte-based Wachovia
. That was despite years of criticism by his predecessor Dick Kovacevich that the cultures of star-focused investment banking and team-focused retail banking don’t mix well.
Mark Calvey covers banking and finance for the San Francisco Business Times.
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