Bank Of America's Lead Director Sloan Steps Down

Bank of America

's lead director Temple Sloan resigned from the largest U.S. bank's board of directors Friday.

Nell Redmond / AP A Bank of America branch.

Investors have criticized Sloan, who had been on the bank's board of directors for 13 years, for not doing more to prevent Chief Executive Ken Lewis from buying Merrill Lynch.

The bank said in a statement Sloan's resignation is effective from May 26.

In a filing it said Sloan's departure was not the result of any disagreement with the company.

Three major advisory groups counseled investors against reelecting Sloan as a director at the bank's annual meeting in April.

Investors re-elected Sloan to the board, but by the narrowest margin of any of the bank's directors, with 37.4 percent of votes cast against him.

Sloan was chairman of the executive committee and the compensation and benefits committee.

He also served as a member of the bank's corporate governance committee.

Bank of America's Chief Executive Kenneth Lewis stepped down as chairman of the board last month, after shareholders at the bank's annual meeting voted against re-electing him to this role.

Shareholders narrowly ousted Lewis as chairman by voting 50.34 percent in favor of electing an independent board chairman compared with 49.66 percent against.

Shareholders at the meeting criticized the bank's directors for failing to disclose huge losses that Merrill was amassing at the end of last year, even as it was paying out $3.62 billion in bonuses to employees.

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