Bank of America Corp.'s new president of global corporate investment banking reaffirmed Friday that the bank will remain in the investment-banking business. But he said BofA will "think simple" on its new strategies for the unit.

Speaking at the BancAnalysts Association of Boston conference, Brian Moynihan said Charlotte, N.C.-based BofA has not yet completed a top-to-bottom review of its businesses in the wake of a significant third-quarter earnings drop.

But Moynihan, who took over late last month when former global investment banking head Gene Taylor retired following the earnings report, reiterated what CEO Ken Lewis said last week: BofA is in investment banking to stay.

"The question is, how complex [do we get]?" Moynihan says. "That's what we're trying to work on and think through."

Then he gave a hint of what was to come.

"Think about a simpler time," he said. "Think about a world where we focus on what we're good at."

Bank of America is Greater Baltimore's largest bank when ranked by deposits and commercial lending.

Tony Plath, a UNC Charlotte banking and finance professor, said BofA will likely exit trading activities that are deemed too risky.

"I'll bet the bank seeks to move its cultural orientation away from a New York-centric approach to investment banking toward a more humble, simple, understandable type of investment banking that they already developed in-house," Plath said.

In many respects, Moynihan's remarks may have been referring to the unit he previously led, global wealth and investment management. Despite his new role, Moynihan used a PowerPoint presentation at Friday's conference that focused on growth in that unit, which includes BofA's Boston-based investment management arm, Columbia Management.

While BofA's stock is down 14 percent this year, Columbia Management has done well. Its assets under management have risen to $709 billion through Sept. 30 from $429 billion in 2004.

Michael Jones was installed as Columbia's new president last week, succeeding Keith Banks, who took over Moynihan's spot as head of global wealth and investment management.

Morningstar Inc.'s three-year equity fund rankings rates Columbia Management sixth in the nation, with 81 percent of its funds above the median return.

"We have solid momentum in this business," Moynihan said at Friday's conference. "We continue to extend our investments. ... The returns are very strong. From my side [at investment management] and now at GCIB, my job is to drive the client relationships thoroughly through the company.

"We get paid a lot of money to manage money for people," he added. "We have great prospects for growth in the future."

On Oct. 18, BofA (NYSE: BAC) reported third-quarter earnings of $3.7 billion, or 82 cents per share, down from $5.4 billion, or $1.18 per share, a year earlier.

The continued disruptions in the credit market hit BofA especially hard in its GCIB unit, where net income fell 93 percent to just $100 million in the third quarter from $1.43 billion a year ago.

In the aftermath, BofA began shuffling senior executives in a broad reorganization plan and announced 3,000 layoffs, most of them in GCIB.

On the day of its earnings report, Lewis said, "I've had all the fun I can stand in investment banking." The comment was widely distributed in the press and financial circles -- and widely misinterpreted, Moynihan said.

"People read some of Ken's comments as we were going to get out" of investment banking, he said. "We're not. Give us a few weeks, and we'll lay out the plan on how we're going to be competitive and how we're going to produce decent returns for you."

Moynihan said the review of GCIB will be finished by year end, and "we'll probably talk about it in our first-quarter earnings.

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