Never discount Wall Street’s ability to turn the most basic parts of life into profits. Mother nature is the latest money spinner for financial firms. Despite the recent Northeast snowstorm, the unseasonably warm winter, and in general a lack of snow, could turn into big profits for the banks, brokerages and insurance firms that deal in so-called weather derivatives.
As Hugh McColl built North Carolina National Bank into NCNB into Nationsbank into Bank of America, Ken Lewis was the guy who made all those mergers work. McColl was the swashbuckler, Lewis the beancounter. From a 2005 profile in by Fortune by Shawn Tully: Lewis’s cool restraint impressed McColl. “He always had good credit judgment,” [...]
