Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway currently has the largest ownership stake in Bank of America Corporation (NYSE: BAC) of any institutional investor. But three insiders also own hefty amounts of the stock.
Key Takeaways
- Berkshire Hathaway is the biggest institutional investor in Bank of America stock, followed by The Vanguard Group, Inc., and BlackRock Fund Advisors.
- Three executives own the largest number of shares among individual investors.
- Bank of America is now one of the “big four” banks that dominate in the U.S. and abroad.
Bank of America is one of the “big four” major money center banks in the United States, along with Wells Fargo & Company (WFC), JPMorgan Chase & Company (JPM), and Citigroup Inc. (C). The bank operates globally, providing financial services to retail and business customers, institutional investors, and government entities.
Its market cap value is $219.72 billion as of October 2020.
Headquartered in Charlotte, North Carolina, Bank of America operates about 16,900 ATMs. A notable 2008 acquisition, Merrill Lynch, made the company one of the largest wealth management firms worldwide and significantly raised its profile in the investment banking industry.
Its three biggest individual shareholders are all company executives.
Thomas K. Montag
Thomas Montag has been the chief operating officer (COO) of Bank of America since 2014, and owns 3,122,775 of common stock. Before becoming sole COO, Montag was a co-chief operating officer from September 2011 to September 2014 and was president of the global banking and markets division from August 2009 to September 2011.
In 2018, Montag exercised options on 2.1 million shares and subsequently disposed of approximately the same amount in a transaction valued at more than $65 million at the time, according to SEC filings.
Brian T. Moynihan
Brian Moynihan is chairman of the board of directors at Bank of America and also the company’s chief executive officer (CEO). During a long tenure with Bank of America, Moynihan has directed virtually every major segment of the bank’s business, including consumer and small business banking, investment banking, and wealth management.
After earning his law degree at the University of Notre Dame, Moynihan went to work at the law firm of Edwards & Angell LLP. He joined Fleet Boston Financial as the company’s deputy general counsel in 1993 before becoming executive vice president in charge of the firm’s brokerage and wealth management business operations. Following a 2004 merger of Fleet Boston with Bank of America, Moynihan became president of wealth and investment management at the bank.
When Bank of America acquired Merrill Lynch, he was named CEO of Merrill Lynch first, and then of Bank of America.
His September 2018 Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) filing reports that Moynihan owned 1.17 million shares of Bank of America.
Geoffrey S. Greener
Geoffrey Greener has been the chief risk officer (CRO) for Bank of America since April 2014. Earlier, Greener had been head of enterprise capital, head of global markets portfolio management, and chair of the global markets capital committee and the global markets regulatory reform executive committee.
Greener is the third-largest insider shareholder, owning 868,253 shares. According to SEC filings, in 2018, he exercised options on nearly 200,000 shares of BAC stock and subsequently sold approximately 150,000 of those for net proceeds of roughly $4.8 million.
Mutual Fund and Institutional Stockholders
The largest shareholder of Bank of America stock is an institutional investor, Warren Buffet’s Berkshire Hathaway, with more than one million shares held, or just under 12% of the company.
Following close behind is mutual fund operator The Vanguard Group, Inc., with a reported 589 million shares amounting to 6.8% ownership.
As might be expected, a Vanguard mutual fund, the Vanguard Total Stock Market Index Fund (“VTSMX”) fund held 220,472,752 shares of Bank of America stock .9% of the company) as of June 30, 2020.
BlackRock owns 6.2% of BAC shares.
