Richard Bove says Bank of America Has ‘No Reason’ to Raise Capital

Bank of America Corp. (BAC), the U.S. lender that lost half its market value this year, has sufficient capital to weather mounting costs tied to souring loans, said Richard Bove, an analyst at Rochdale Securities.



“Bank of America has so much cash on its balance sheet that it could pay back all of its short-term debt and a big chunk of its long-term debt,” Bove said in an interview today on Bloomberg Television’s “InBusiness With Margaret Brennan.” “There’s no reason for the bank to have to go out and raise capital whatsoever.”



The firm fell as much as 6.4 percent in New York trading today and the cost to protect its debt from default surged to a record before retreating. Henry Blodget, the former Internet stock analyst turned blogger, wrote today on Business Insider that charges and loan costs may force the bank to raise as much as $200 billion.



“Mr. Blodget is making ‘exaggerated and unwarranted claims,’ which is what the Securities and Exchange Commission stated publicly when he was permanently banned from the securities industry in 2003,” the Charlotte, North Carolina- based bank said today in an e-mailed statement.



Blodget, a former Merrill Lynch & Co. analyst, was banned for life from the securities industry after regulatory inquiries into how analysts touted stocks during the Internet boom. He was hit with $4 million in fines and repayments after watchdogs including the SEC faulted his reports on companies including go2.com. Merrill was acquired by Bank of America in 2009.

Fairest of the Fair Weather Fans

Bank of America Tier One Capital Ratio 6 Percent

Bank of America had a Tier One capital ratio of about 6 percent as of June 2011 under the new rules recommended by the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision, according to an Aug. 9 note from Jonathan Glionna of Barclays Plc. The bank probably has until 2019 to reach 9.5 percent, the level required of the world’s largest banks. That’s enough time to bolster capital by selling assets deemed risky, Moynihan has said.

Four days after U.S. lawmakers berated Financial Accounting Standards Board Chairman Robert Herz and threatened to take rulemaking out of his hands, FASB proposed an overhaul of fair-value accounting that may improve profits at banks such as Citigroup Inc. by more than 20 percent.



The changes proposed on March 16 to fair-value, also known as mark-to-market accounting, would allow companies to use “significant judgment” in valuing assets and reduce the amount of writedowns they must take on so-called impaired investments, including mortgage-backed securities. A final vote on the resolutions, which would apply to first-quarter financial statements, is scheduled for April 2.



FASB’s acquiescence followed lobbying efforts by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the American Bankers Association and companies ranging from Bank of New York Mellon Corp., the world’s largest custodian of financial assets, to community lender Brentwood Bank in Pennsylvania. Former regulators and accounting analysts say the new rules would hurt investors who need more transparency, not less, in financial statements.



Officials at Norwalk, Connecticut-based FASB were under “tremendous pressure” and “more or less eviscerated mark-to- market accounting,” said Robert Willens, a former managing director at Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. who runs his own tax and accounting advisory firm in New York. “I’d say there was a pretty close cause and effect.”

Where's There's Smoke There's Fire

Bove Says Share Price Irrelevant

"There is no impact whatsoever on Bank of America's balance sheet, based upon the price of its stock in the open market. If the price of the stock goes to a penny a share, it has no impact on the balance sheet of Bank of America. Bank of America sells the stock to the public, it takes in the money, and that is the end of the transaction as far as Bank of America is concerned. If you're going to break a bank, you're going to have a run on its deposits. That's not happening. Exactly the opposite is happening…Deposits are pouring into Bank of America."

Will Bank of America Survive?

Richard Bove Calls

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