Next CEO on the firing line: BofA's Kenneth Lewis

Too late with too little, other outlets have reported that GM's ousted CEO Rick Wagoner (above) will have to renegotiate terms of his retirement package. But thanks to some earlier finagling, Wagoner will be starting at a higher level, so save your sympathy.

This morning we read that Bank of America CEO Kenneth Lewis is not long for the boardroom. On the heels of Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner's weekend threat to force out bank CEOs, just as the White House did to Wagoner, the Wall Street Journal story broadly hints at an exit by Lewis.

It might be a good idea to keep an eye on how much gold will be used to pave what will be characterized as Lewis's "retirement."

Look at how GM did it with Wagoner (as I dug up March 30 from company documents): The automaker and Wagoner cooked up a really sweet deal that resulted in his staggering 167 percent increase in pension and deferred-compensation payments — a big part of his overall 41 percent hike in total pay during 2007 while GM's share price fell by 17 percent.

The same day (March 30), ABC reported only that Wagoner is scheduled to get a $20 million retirement package and may be forced to renegotiate it.

But further digging shows that GM changed its retirement rules for its top execs a couple of years ago to allow them to retire two years early with no reduction in pension and deferred-compensation pay. It's understandable that investors and reporters would miss this news, because it was buried in a footnote of the automaker's April 25, 2008 proxy filing with the SEC (GM's most recent proxy filing).

The GM pay table is on page 36. On the next page, Footnote 5 notes that GM was changing its Executive Retirement Plan to "decrease benefits to be earned in 2007 and later years." Sounds like a responsible move that investors would applaud, but then the footnote goes on to say:

What a sweet deal. And no wonder the footnote cited only Wagoner as an example. He was the only GM top executive to benefit from this change that allowed him to retire early. He almost made it. Wagoner was forced out by the White House this past March 29, at which time he was 56 years old. But he still benefits, because the higher value of his pension from that readjustment allows him to start at a higher level in his negotiations with his boardroom buddies.

As for BofA CEO Lewis: The WSJ notes that Lewis "has managed to hold on to his job during the recent credit crisis" but that "the 61-year-old CEO has signaled he could leave the bank as soon as the current crisis is over and definitely plans to depart within three years, according to people familiar with the matter."

Unless there's a miracle, Lewis will undoubtedly leave much sooner than three years from now.