Cash over flash: as bank of America's CEO, Ken Lewis thinks performance trumps personality. And he has the numbers to prove it.

• Author: Martin, Edward

Fifty-eight floors below the conference room where the man who runs the world's most profitable company rattles off numbers--most profitable, he corrects himself, except for Big Oil--what once was called the Crossroads of the Carolinas crackles with commerce. It's now a nexus of the nation's business, all because gall and guile grew a Charlotte bank into a global giant. But up here, above it all, Bank of America Corp.'s chief executive makes it seem dull.

Ken Lewis sticks to the script, meting out the metrics. The room, like the man, says little. There's a rendering of Bank of America Stadium, where the Panthers play a few blocks away, some plaques and awards, a small flat-screen TV. Performance, he and his surroundings intimate, is what counts, not personality. His predecessor was the most dynamic Tar Heel CEO of his generation. But Lewis has something Hugh McColl never had--some of the best numbers in the industry. "Ken always was a better businessman than I am," McColl says. "He's better at making money than I am."

On Aug. 8, BofA nudged out Citigroup as the world's most valuable financial-services company, with market capitalization of nearly $240 billion. It has been running neck-and-neck with its New York rival since. After reporting second-quarter earnings of $5.48 billion--more than any other bank--the third quarter's were up 41%, the $5.42 billion profit just shy of Citigroup's $5.51 billion. That's basically a tie, BofA's chief financial officer argues, if you subtract one-time gains and other factors. Total return on BofA stock has soared 142.2% since Lewis took over five years ago. The average gain for big-bank competitors: 59%.

It's inevitable that Lewis, 59, be compared with McColl, who built what was once North Carolina National Bank into a behemoth through staccato acquisitions in the '80s and '90s. He exhales a barely audible chuckle. "We said in 2001 we were not going to be able to double our size every other year through some megamergers. What I'm proudest of is the combination of all these things. Gains come through getting it right every day, as opposed to episodic events." Lewis proves, as one analyst has said, that in banking, boring is beautiful. Colleagues call him focused. Critics call him calculating. Either way, his push to make his company the most efficient, most profitable big bank in the country is built on millions of small successes. Court mom-and-pop customers. Sell them credit cards and mutual funds. Outflank the big brokerages by offering some customers free trades. Sell more, and spend less doing it.

Now comes the challenge. Facing regulatory limits on deposits gained by acquisitions, BofA can no longer rely on buyouts to boost revenue. "In terms of another bank acquisition in the U.S., we have very few options," he concedes. So he intends to grow in three ways: by selling more products and services through a network of 6,000 branches--the country's largest--by expanding abroad and by making BofA a serious player on Wall Street.

Each requires different skills; each pits the bank against tough competitors. In financial retailing, BofA could face one of America's most fearsome companies. Wal-Mart, its denials notwithstanding, is almost certain to enter full-service banking in a few years. Abroad, the bank will square off with European companies that long ago embraced international finance. Giants such as England's HSBC Holdings and Spain's Banco Santander Central Hispano won't be the pushovers commercial banks in this country have been. On Wall Street, BofA will tangle with the likes of New York's Goldman Sachs and Switzerland's UBS. For a decade, it has tried, with scant success, to be a force in investment banking.

Can Lewis pull it off? Investors seem to think so. In early October, he chalked up another record when BofA shares closed at $54.82, adjusted for splits and dividends. His board apparently agrees, making him one of the best-paid CEOs in his industry: $22 million in cash, stock, options and perks last year. But is the man who made Bank of America live up to its name the one who can turn it into a real world power?

Though he no longer has a formal role in the bank, McColl has offices six floors below Lewis in the 60-story Bank of America Corporate Center. Now 71, he recalls when he first realized that Lewis might follow in his footsteps. It started with a fit of temper. In 1981, he had tried to buy Florida National Bank, one of that state's largest, but had been rebuffed. "One day," he railed, "we're going to own this whole goddamn state." By the end of the next year, NCNB was on its way to doing that. It had paid $225 million for banks that covered the population centers. More followed. Many resembled little First National Bank of Lake City. It was no bargain, even at $6 million. First National...