Bank Of America

*As of 2010, Bank of America is the 5th largest company in the United States by total revenue,[12] as well as the second largest non-oil company in the U.S. (after Wal-Mart). In 2010, Forbes listed Bank of America as the 3rd "best" large company in the world.[13]

The bank's 2008 acquisition of Merrill Lynch made Bank of America the world's largest wealth manager and a major player in the Investment Banking industry.[14]

The company holds 12.2% of all U.S. deposits (Retail Bank), as of August 2009,[15] and is one of the Big Four Banks of the United States, along with CitiGroup, J P Morgan Chase and Wells Fargo — its main competitors.*

On August 23, 2007 the company announced a $2 billion repurchase agreement for Countrywide Financial.

In 2010 the bank was accused by the US federal government of defrauding schools, hospitals, and dozens of state and local government organizations via misconduct and illegal activities involving the investment of proceeds from municipal bond sales.

Bank of America received US $20 billion in the federal Bail-Out from the U.S. government through the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) on 16 January 2009 and also got a guarantee of US $118 billion in potential losses at the company.[74] This was in addition to the $25 billion given to them in the Fall of 2008 through TARP. The additional payment was part of a deal with the US government to preserve Bank of America's merger with the troubled investment firm Merrill Lynch.

In October 2009 WikiLeaks representative Julian Assange reported that his organization possessed a 5 gigabyte hard drive formerly used by a Bank of America executive and that Wikileaks intended to edit and publish its contents.[105] In November 2010 Forbes published an interview with Assange in which he stated his intent to publish information which would turn a major US bank "inside out."[106] In response to this announcement, Bank of America stock dropped 3.2%.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bank_of_America