Word: armacost
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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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...