Bank of America Corporation is a universal bank with serious bulge bracket ambitions for its global corporate and investment banking division, which accounts for about a fifth of the group’s earnings. Ken Lewis tells Geraldine Lambe that he believes the bank will be one of the five or six “survivors” on a world scale by the end of the decade.Many believe that softly-spoken, self-effacing Ken Lewis is the man who can deliver on Bank of America Corporation’s (BAC) ambitions. BAC has already made notable market share gains across a number of debt products and is targeting improvements in equities and mergers and acquisitions.
Mr Lewis’s style may be less abrasive than that of his predecessor, Hugh McColl, but few doubt that he is a man of considerable mettle with a will of iron to match. Following the McColl years of acquisition and growth, he has taken on the job of methodically whipping the bank’s balance sheet back into shape by shrinking its loans and assets and aggressively trimming costs. He has injected new buzzwords into the company ethos: focus and discipline. “If one thing is iron-clad, it is that there will be only one culture and one set of values in the bank,” he says. “Our associates either accept that or choose to work somewhere else.”
