BofA Shareholders Split on Successor Talks

Ken Lewis’ sudden resignation as chief executive of Bank of America left the company’s board of directors, as well as many of its shareholders, scratching their heads over whole will take the reins of the financial giant and when. Now that the company has established a variety of plans, though, a new conflict has arisen among shareholders over whether or not Bank of America’s new leader should be a BofA insider or outsider.

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Lewis has spent the last eight years as CEO of the company and forty years with Bank of America in all, but his departure came as an unexpected knock to the company. A spokesman for Bank of America revealed the conflict between shareholders, stating that either decision will end up alienating plenty of investors.

Brian Moynihan, the head of the retail-banking unit, and Gregory Curl, the bank’s chief risk officer, are the two leading internal candidates according to a source close to the private succession committee. While their intimate knowledge of Bank of America’s interior may prove to be immensely useful to them as chief executives, many investors would prefer that the company have a leader that can come in and change Bank of America for the better, without being too heavily influenced by the company’s status quo.