Bank of America

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Bank of America Corporation ( BofA, BoA, BAC) since July 2006, the largest bank in the United States, headquartered in Charlotte, North Carolina. The origins go back to the bank, which was founded in 1784 Bank of Massachusetts, which makes them additionally the second oldest bank in the United States. The company is listed on the NYSE and the Tokyo Stock Exchange. The brand Bank of America in 2008 was 33.1 billion U.S. dollars, the most valuable brand in the banking sector and was thus the world in 14th place In terms of equity it was classified in 2012 by the British magazine " The Banker " as the largest bank in the world.

The Bank employs in the year 2012 267.000 employees in 5,700 branches and generated a turnover of 84 billion U.S. dollars. The balance sheet total was in 2012 reported at 2.20 trillion U.S. dollars.

The Bank is one of the 28 major banks, which by the Financial Stability Board (FSB) as " systemically important financial institution" ( systemically important financial institution) were classified. Therefore it is subject to special monitoring and stringent requirements on the level of equity.

History

BofA was created by a long series of mergers and acquisitions. The eponym was founded in 1923 as Bank of America, Los Angeles, Orra E. Monnette and merged in 1929 with the Bank of Italy, San Francisco. Their growth was initially reduced to California Due to various laws and regulatory systems. 1958 held the order of the Jesuits 51 percent of the shares. Only after the removal of these restrictions, the expansion was in 1983 with the purchase of Seafirst Corporation, Seattle, be continued. In 1992, with the acquisition of Security Pacific Corporation, the largest ever takeover of history in the banking sector.

The current Bank of America finally emerged through the acquisition of Bank of America by NationsBank in 1998. The nation bank based in Charlotte took over by buying the name Bank of America, the headquarters of the company remained in North Carolina. The new company continued its expansion and further acquired the Fleet Boston Financial, headquartered in Boston, which dates back to 1784.

NationsBank

The emergence of the nation's banking dates back to 1874 when the National Commercial Bank was founded in 1957 with the American Trust Co to ​​American Commercial Bank merged. In 1960 the name was in North Carolina National Bank and changed according to a number of other acquisitions, NationsBank in 1991.

BankAmericard

The BankAmericard is the predecessor of the VISA Card, Bank of America is considered the inventor with the publication of the first credit cards in 1959. 1977 was renamed VISA.

Banking and financial crisis from 2008

Due to the financial crisis 2007/2009, Bank of America bought for $ 2.5 billion, the troubled company Countrywide Financial. On 15 September 2008 it was announced that Merrill Lynch, which is taken over at that time the third- largest investment bank in the United States. The acquisition was paid for with shares worth 50 billion U.S. dollars. The purchase of Lehman Brothers, the fourth largest U.S. investment bank, has been canceled by the Bank of America. On the same day Lehman Brothers filed for bankruptcy. Bank of America so far received $ 25 billion from the federal bailout plan. On 17 November 2008 it reported exercise as a long -term strategic investment the rest of an option to purchase shares of the sovereign wealth fund China Safe Investments and now holds 44.7 billion shares of China Construction Bank: You wrote this at the time of purchase has a value of about 24 billion dollars.

On December 11, 2008, a press statement was released, after which 30000-35000 jobs are to be eliminated within three years. In January 2009 it was announced that Bank of America $ 20 billion more will receive from the state bailout of the U.S. federal government. The state receives Bank of America preferred shares in return. In the fourth quarter was incurred because of the provision for loan losses, write-downs and losses in trading activities, a loss of 2.4 billion dollars.

The Bank of America shares have fallen to a market value of $ 3.14 in March 2009, during the crisis, from $ 50 in April 2007.

On 22 September 2009, the Bank announced that they leave the state protection screen and will pay a total of $ 425 million to the Treasury, the Federal Reserve and deposit insurance for the resolution of the security agreement. The Bank has repaid all of its debt to the U.S. government in the amount of 45 billion dollars ( 30 billion euros ) in one fell swoop. The money for this brought the bank through the issuance of convertible bonds and the sale of treasury assets.

On 20 October 2010 it was announced that a group of investors wanted to Bank of America force, bonds packaged problematic mortgages ( see also sub-prime market ) securities with a value of around 47 billion dollars. A total of eight investors accused the bank prior mistakes in dealing with the mortgage and misleading information on the quality of the papers.

On 29 June 2011, the Bank of America was known that they had entered into with the investors concerned a comparison of over 8.5 billion U.S. dollars. Again 5.5 billion U.S. dollars were returned by the bank for more contentious cases.

It was also on 25 August 2011 that Warren Buffett invested $ 5 billion in Bank of America. To this end, Buffett received preferred shares with an interest rate of six percent a year.

On 29 August 2011, the Bank informed of America with that they sold to equity increase half of the 10 percent stake worth 8.3 billion U.S. dollars in China Construction Bank to undisclosed investors. A share of around five per cent will continue to monitor the bank. On 14 November 2011, the Bank of America was known that separates it from other 10.4 billion shares in China Construction Bank. Thus, the BofA now holds just under 1 percent in China Construction Bank. With the share sale, Bank of America wanted to raise their core capital ratio.

In September 2011, the rating agency Moody's downgraded the credit rating of long-term loans from Bank of America by two notches from "A2 " to " Baa1 " down. It is less likely that the U.S. government would intervene to keep a troubled bank before a crisis.

For the first quarter of 2012, Bank of America chart showed a profit of 328 million U.S. dollars (for comparison, JP Morgan Chase 5.4 billion, Citigroup 2.9 billion U.S. dollars). On May 1, 2012 it was announced that BoA wants to dismiss 2000 highly paid officials in investment banking.

Acquisition of Merrill Lynch

On September 14, 2008, Bank of America expressed its intention to Merrill Lynch & Co., Inc to buy. On 1 January 2009, Merrill Lynch became a subsidiary of Bank of America.

Building

Over time, in various American cities, the Bank of America gave works for high buildings in order to set up some offices there. Well-known buildings are:

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