As many of you may recall, for several years, analyst Dick Bové’s heart belonged to one CEO and one CEO only- Ken Lewis. The two of them had something special and it seemed like their love could withstand the strongest of tests. When her man was essentially forced out of his job, she rallied to his defense, staying strong and fighting back the tears to pen an impassioned note to clients in which she proclaimed: “No other banker in this country can equal Mr Lewis’s achievements and yet every banker wishes s/he could.” When it seemed like Bank of America couldn’t find one person to take the CEO gig, she seized the opportunity and wrote: “Mr. Lewis was a key architect in the creation and management of Bank of America. He knows this company better than anyone else and he knows how to operate it. At this point in the company’s history, this is the type of leader needed. Convincing him to return would be the biggest morale builder that management could get.” When they still didn’t listen she begged. She pleaded. She showed up at various board members’ houses in the middle of the night wearing nothing but a trench coat and her highest heels, telling the confused person at the door, “I’m going to make you understand why Ken should get to stay.”

But her efforts (and her feigned moaning) were all for naught. Her Kenny was replaced by some “useless Mick,” she’d shout at the TV after several rum ‘n Tabs. And that’s when things really started to fall apart. Ken never left the house, hell, he rarely even felt the need to get dressed and they were at each other’s throats all the time. She’d always been on the high-end of hormonal (that’s what’d attracted Ken in the first place) but now she’d tacked hard right to unstable. If Ken so much as glanced in the direction of another woman she’d fly off the handle; she’d throw all his clothes out the window and then shriek and cry for him to come back; and eventually, her threats to kill herself or him stopped having an effect and he left. And while for a good while there she was convinced she’d never love anyone again and to be honest, her therapist suggested that was a good thing, as she couldn’t handle the volatility of relationships. Then, a couple months ago, she began studying Morgan Stanley’s James Gorman. And she started to get that familiar itch. And that’s when this happened: Continue reading »