Shareholders to Vote on BofA, FleetBoston Deal

Bank of America Corp. and FleetBoston Financial Corp. are scheduled to hold special shareholder meetings Wednesday to vote on the companies’ proposed merger.

Bank of America’s meeting will be held at 10 a.m. EST in Charlotte, N.C., where its headquarters are located. The Fleet vote will take place at the same time at the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston. Fleet is based in Boston.

The companies said shareholders of record as of Jan. 26 would be entitled to vote.

Both have said they expect the merger to close in the second quarter.

Last week, the Federal Reserve cleared the way for the two banks. to combine and form a banking titan with nearly $1 trillion in assets, stretching from California through the South and up to New England.

It would be the nation’s third-largest bank.

The Fed’s board of governors, including Chairman Alan Greenspan , voted 6 to 0 to approve the merger, finding that Bank of America’s acquisition of New England’s largest bank would not threaten competition or unduly concentrate banking resources.

Bank of America in October agreed to buy Fleet for $47 billion in stock.

Under the terms of the agreement, Fleet shareholders would receive 0.5553 of a Bank of America share for each of their Fleet shares.

The new institution, with about 5,700 branches, would have assets estimated at $966 billion, trailing only Citigroup Inc. and another planned bank mega merger between Chicago-based Bank One Corp. and Wall Street powerhouse J.P. Morgan Chase & Co.