Bank of America Corp. Chief Executive Officer Brian Moynihan said he isn’t leaving his post anytime soon as the bank elevates executives to new roles that will give them more experience, sparking questions about succession for the longtime leader.
“Long term, one of the duties that I and the management team owe the board of directors is a series of candidates that have the experience to run this company over time,” Moynihan said in a Bloomberg Television interview Wednesday.
“I’m not going anywhere in the short term or the medium term, but it takes a while to set that up and get people used to the size and scale of this company,” he added.
Last week the bank elevated Jim DeMare, head of global markets, to the role of co-president with Dean Athanasia, president of regional banking, in one of the biggest leadership shake-ups since 2021.
The changes give more responsibilities to the two executives, and narrows the number of contenders to succeed Moynihan. The lender also gave Chief Financial Officer Alastair Borthwick more responsibilities as executive vice president.
Moynihan is one of the longest-tenured CEOs of a big U.S. bank, having taken the helm in 2010 to help build the bank through the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis. Fifteen years later, he’s continuing to signal his intent to stay on, saying as recently as Friday that he wants to continue in the role through the end of the decade.
The move “is a recognition of three teammates — Dean and Jim and Alastair — and the contributions they have made to our company, in bringing Jim and Dean to help me leverage across our businesses,” Moynihan said Wednesday.
Bank of America’s trading unit run by DeMare posted a record second quarter, beating analysts’ expectations but underperforming its peers as Wall Street firms reaped the benefits of the market volatility that arose from President Donald Trump‘s tariff wars.
The trading division is trending higher by a percentage in the single-digits this quarter, as investors continue to reposition themselves in active markets, Borthwick said at a conference this month.
“There is considerable opportunity to be more consistent in our delivery,” DeMare said in a separate Bloomberg Television interview Wednesday. “Ideas are great, execution is everything."
Bank of America is still on track to meet its estimates of $15.5 billion to $15.7 billion for net interest income on a fully taxable equivalent basis by the fourth quarter of 2025, Borthwick said. That closely watched measure is the revenue collected from loan payments minus what depositors are paid, a key source of revenue for the company overall.
Wealth management has been a fast-growing, competitive space across banks. The biggest firms have poured resources into building teams and products, hoping to lure new clients who bring with them additional assets to invest and business opportunities.
Lindsay Hans and Eric Schimpf were named co-heads of Merrill Wealth Management after longtime leader Andy Sieg left as president in 2023 to run Citigroup Inc.’s burgeoning wealth-management unit.
Alternative investments such as private equity, private credit, professional sports and artificial intelligence have grown in popularity among Merrill’s clients, the executives said in a separate Bloomberg Television interview Wednesday.
“Clients want liquidity solutions. They want to protect their capital. They want to preserve it, they want to grow it, they want to pass it down and transfer it,” Hans said. “We have access to a balance sheet that allows us to provide very customized liquidity solutions.”
The Federal Reserve is expected to cut interest rates Wednesday afternoon, which has led to a surge in the U.S. equities market this week. The enthusiasm for rate cuts has put some of the concerns over Trump’s trade war in the rear-view mirror for many banks.
“The Fed has to adjust to the inflation picture,” Moynihan said Wednesday. “They came down 100 basis points already, and they can keep coming down. But they’ve got to be very mindful of the inflation side.”
Credit: Bloomberg
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