Overseas briefs: Bank of America must allow shareholder vote on breakup, Spanish bank buys TSB

Bank of America must allow shareholders to vote on a proposal calling for the bank to consider spinning off its investment banking business, after US regulators told the bank it could not exclude the proposal from its corporate ballot. Reuters reports the March 17 decision by the Securities and Exchange Commission marks a victory for Bartlett Naylor, a Bank of America shareholder who works for the non-profit Public Citizen. Bank spokesman Lawrence Grayson said the bank would "respond to the proposal in our proxy statement. We do not believe that creating a separate subcommittee on shareholder value is necessary." He said the board "focuses on shareholder value and regularly analyses these issues. We have reduced the size of the company by hundreds of billions of dollars as we have streamlined and simplified our business model."
UK bank TSB, which was previously owned by Lloyds, has agreed to a takeover offer from Spanish bank Sabadell, the BBC reports. TSB was listed on the London Stock Exchange last year, after Lloyds sold 50 per cent of its holdings. Lloyds has already agreed to sell its remaining 50 per cent to Sabadell. Sabadell said TSB would continue to operate as a retail bank in the UK market.