Bank of America Names New Chief Investment Officer Walter J. Muller

Bank of America today named Walter J. Muller Chief Investment Officer to replace Ian G. Banwell, who announced his intention to resign from the company in order to launch an alternative investments firm, Round Table Investment Management.

"Ian has done a great job in the years he has served as our CIO," said Joe L. Price, chief financial officer of Bank of America. "Given our successful relationship and our strong confidence in Ian, we have chosen to make a minority investment in the new firm and intend to seed several of the funds."

"Walter Muller has been the architect behind much of our dynamic, performance-driven asset/liability management team," continued Price. "He has served closely with Ian for many years and knows the business extremely well. I am excited that Walter will continue to provide strong leadership and contribute to the success of our corporate investments team."

Muller will assume the role effective today.

Muller has supported the Corporate Investments team since 1992, serving as the bank's Quantitative Finance Executive since 1999. He has also supported the bank's quantitative finance efforts for Corporate Treasury and Risk Management. Muller holds a Ph.D. in applied economics from the Sloan School of Management at MIT.

Bank of America will own a minority, non-voting share in Round Table and will serve in an observer capacity on Round Table's advisory board.

Bank of America is one of the world's largest financial institutions, serving individual consumers, small and middle market businesses and large corporations with a full range of banking, investing, asset management and other financial and risk-management products and services. The company provides unmatched convenience in the United States, serving more than 56 million consumer and small business relationships with more than 5,700 retail banking offices, more than 17,000 ATMs and award-winning online banking with nearly 22 million active users. Bank of America is the No. 1 overall Small Business Administration (SBA) lender in the United States and the No. 1 SBA lender to minority-owned small businesses. The company serves clients in 175 countries and has relationships with 98 percent of the U.S. Fortune 500 companies and 80 percent of the Fortune Global 500. Bank of America Corporation stock (NYSE: BAC) is listed on the New York Stock Exchange.