Annual meeting season for the banking industry reached a crescendo at the end of last month, with high-profile shareholder gatherings at Washington Mutual, Citigroup, Merrill Lynch, and elsewhere.
As one might expect in light of the credit crisis, banks found the meetings to be decidedly sub-prime experiences.
The worst drama unfolded at Washington Mutual, which swung from more than $3 billion in profits in 2005 and 2006 to a $67 million loss in 2007. Still, WaMu’s board announced in March that it would exclude the bank’s huge mortgage losses last year when calculating executives’ bonus payments in 2008.
Outraged shareholders promptly launched ...