Bank of America saw its first-quarter net income plummet to $1.21 billion from $5.26 billion a year earlier as the bank took a large hit from losses related to the credit crunch. Its diluted earnings per share fell by 80 per cent to $0.23 from $1.16 in the same period in 2007, BoA said in its results statement. Meanwhile, assets under management in the bank’s global wealth and investment management arm rose to $607 billion, a figure including the added assets brought in through BoA’s purchase of US Trust and LaSalle and the outflows stemming from the sale of Marsico Capital Management. Net revenue in wealth and investment management rose by 8 per cent. Asset management fees rose by 39 per cent to $899 million, mainly from the addition of US Trust and LaSalle. The increase was offset by a $220 million loss related to support provided to certain cash funds. For the bank as a whole, the main cause of the reduced earnings was provision for bad loans and trading losses. It said provision expenses rose by $4.78 billion from a year ago, while trading losses amounted to $1.36 billion, reversing income of $1.66 billion a year before. Many of the losses were linked to collateralised debt obligations, a pattern repeated for a number of other banking groups in the US and Europe such as Citi and UBS. “Despite revenue growth in most of our businesses, these results clearly did not meet our expectations," said Kenneth Lewis, chairman and chief executive officer. "The weakness in the economy and prolonged disruptions in the capital markets took their toll on our performance,” he added. The bank had 209,096 employees at the end of the quarter, up from 199,429 a year before.