Ma 01, 2009

Bank of America Corp., the biggest U.S. bank by assets, picked a 16-year board veteran and academic as chairman after shareholders chased Kenneth D. Lewis from the post. It’s still Lewis, the president and chief executive officer, who must calm angry investors.Walter E. Massey, 71, president-emeritus of Morehouse College in Atlanta, was named to lead the board. Shareholders, riled by Lewis’s handling of the Merrill Lynch & Co. takeover and a 77 percent plunge in the bank’s stock over the past year, voted to install an independent chairman yesterday at a four- hour annual meeting in Charlotte, North Carolina.

Lewis, 62, was re-elected to the board with 67 percent of shareholder votes. The company issued a statement saying the board “unanimously expressed its support for Lewis” as president and CEO. Even so, he may yet be forced to step down, said Sean Egan, president of Egan-Jones Ratings Co.“It’s plausible that’s the next step, but it very well may not happen for as long as a couple years,” Egan said in an interview. “Ken Lewis won’t have as much control over the board any more.” Egan’s firm has estimated the Charlotte-based bank needs as much as $100 billion of additional capital.