A wealthy retired business executive in the US is suing the private client group of Fleet Bank, now part of Bank of America, for bad financi...

A wealthy retired business executive in the US is suing the private client group of Fleet Bank, now part of Bank of America, for bad financial advice that he alleged cost him millions of dollars, according to reports in the US press.

Darrell Mayeux filed the suit in 2003, which said the bank mismanaged his investments and failed to provide the kind of personal attention it had promised. The bank denies the charge and says Mr Mayeux’s problems were of his own doing.

Mr Mayeux, a former vice president of sales and marketing at Fairchild Semiconductor, said he was approached in 2000 by the bank’s private client group, which represents people with at least $1 million in assets. Mr Mayeux then had Fairchild stock worth about $16 million.

According to a report in the Portland Press Herald Mr Mayeux deposited 463,000 shares of Fairchild stock in a Fleet investment account in August of 2000, and was persuaded to take out a $4 million credit line using the stocks as collateral.

The suit says Fleet advised Mr Mayeux to use the loan to create a diversified investment portfolio.

In 2002, with Fairchild's stock price plummeting from more than $30 to about $10 a share, the value of Mr Mayeux's collateral fell. But the suit claims Fleet failed to provide financial advice when the falling value put his loan into jeopardy, according to the report.

When the value of the stocks fell to $4.2 million, the bank advised him to sell 263,000 shares, which he did. Under the terms of the loan, the value of his collateral was not supposed to drop below $8 million.

The following spring, Fleet sold the remaining 200,000 shares to recoup the money owed it by Mr Mayeux, raising $2.2 million.

The suit states that Fleet panicked when it sold the stock for between $10.33 and $11.83 a share, in the middle of the war in Iraq, according to the Portland Press Herald report.