G. Kennedy Thompson Securities and Exchange Commission, he will get a severance of $1.45 million and accelerated vesting of $7.25 million in restricted stock. Thompson had served the company for 32 years. Lanty Smith replaced Thompson as interim CEO. On July 10, 2008 Robert K. Steel, the former Treasury Undersecretary and Goldman Sachs Group Inc. executive, took over as CEO of Wachovia Corp. However, Wachovia only survived for two more months before it was forced to merge with Wells Fargo. While CEO of Wachovia in 2007, G. Kennedy Thompson received a total compensation of $15,653,559, which included a base salary of $1,090,000, a
Credit rating agencies and the subprime crisis losses. But as of September 2008, bank writedowns and losses on these investments totaled $523 billion. Rating agencies lowered the credit ratings on $1.9 trillion in mortgage backed securities from the third fiscal quarter (1 July—30 September) of 2007 to the second quarter (1 April–30 June) of 2008. One institution, Merrill Lynch, sold more than $30 billion of collateralized debt obligations for 22 cents on the dollar in late July 2008. The net worth of financial institutions owning the newly downgraded securities declined, requiring the institutions to acquire additional capital, to maintain capital ratios, which in turn often lowered the