Reuters reports that things are changing on the board at Bank of America:

The largest U.S. bank said John Collins, who runs a Boston-based venture capital firm; William Barnet, who runs a real estate investment firm; and Gary Countryman, chairman emeritus of Liberty Mutual Group, had all resigned. Bank of America has now replaced more than half of the 19-person board it had in place in early March.

According to BofA’s 8-K filing, "Each director’s decision to resign was not as a result of any disagreement with the Corporation or its management."

OK . . . Perhaps they all suddenly and independently decided to spend more time with their families. Similarly, I’m sure the decision to announce this late on a Friday evening had nothing to do with keeping this out of the media’s glare. "Nothing to see here. Move along, move along . . ."

Forget the "early March" item from Reuters. At the end of April, BofA announced the unanimous re-election of an 18 member board at their 2009 annual meeting. Of these 18, nine have now departed: the three above, plus Tommy Franks, Patricia Mitchell, Joseph Prueher, Temple Sloan, Robert Tillman, and Jackie Ward. (Another director, Meredith Spangler, did not stand for re-election as she had reached the board’s mandatory retirement age.)

That’s a lot of turnover among people who just three months ago consented to stand for re-election.

And look at the new faces on the board. In June they added Donald E. Powell, a former chairman of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation; Susan Bies, a former member of the board of governors in the Federal Reserve system; D. Paul Jones Jr., the former chief executive of Compass Bancshares, and William Boardman, a former executive at Bank One.

Out go some folks with less obvious banking background (General Franks, Admiral Prueher) and in come two people with a wee bit more knowledge of the industry (Jones, Boardman), plus two more people with significant oversight and regulatory background (Powell, Bies).

The fascinating element to me is the changes to the board’s Audit Committee. Out go Franks and Prueher. They are replaced by Powell and Jones, thus swapping a general and an admiral for a former FDIC chair and a former bank CEO. Now we have the departure of Barnet and Collins, leaving Powell, Jones, and Thomas May as the Audit Committee.

There may have been no disagreements about these resignations, but it sure looks as if *someone* wasn’t happy with the performance of the BofA Board’s Audit Committee.

I wonder when this will get noticed by the TradMed.