Word: armacost
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There was less ambiguity in the $2.8 billion merger offer made to limping BankAmerica (assets: $117 billion), headed by President and Chief Executive Officer Samuel Armacost, 47. The proposal from Joseph Pinola, 61, chairman of California's First Interstate Bancorp (No. 9 in the U.S., with assets of $50 billion), was to forge a firm that would rival Citicorp ($176 billion) as the country's No.1 banking institution. Late last week, as BankAmerica board members considered Pinola's offer, Armacost abruptly resigned. The reason, as he put it, was "to help restore confidence in this organization's capabilities and future...
That skepticism played a key part in Armacost's resignation. As he said last week, a management change was necessary because "external perceptions about the bank have been so eroded by rumor and speculation." Indeed, only a month ago, Armacost bought airtime on California radio stations to discount rumors that the bank was about to ask for federal protection from its creditors. After the executive's resignation announcement, the rumor that former BankAmerica President A.W. Clausen would return circulated along with the news of a weekend meeting of the bank's 15 directors. In Washington, Clausen issued only a firm...
...troubles of financial giant BankAmerica were hardly a secret. A red tide of loan losses has swelled over the past four years, and Chairman Samuel Armacost last month forecast little or no profit for the second quarter. Still, the financial community was stunned when BankAmerica last week announced a net loss of $338 million for that period. It was the second-worst quarterly deficit in U.S. banking history (after Continental Illinois' $1.1 billion loss in the second quarter...
...Michael Armacost, a former U.S. ambassador to Japan who is now a visiting professor at Stanford University, does not believe the Kims are working on a deal. "I've never been fully convinced," he says, "that people invest that much money and effort in a program they're going to bargain away." The diplomatic fog, he thinks, has all been cover for a determined bomb program. Norman Levin, a senior analyst at the Rand Corp., believes North Korea is bargaining, but not about economic aid or diplomatic recognition. The issue is securing the succession of Kim Jong Il, who does...
...significant progress" in China's human-rights record. His reaction was one of a number of clues that President Clinton has decided against cracking down hard on China by cutting back trade. Another sign was a secret visit to Beijing by a special envoy, former Ambassador to Japan Michael Armacost; his job reportedly was to coax the Chinese leaders into other concessions that the White House could seize on to justify that decision...