Sallie Mae’s Lord loses a job

Sallie Mae (SLM) investors got some good news for a change. The struggling student lender said Monday it’s stripping CEO Albert Lord of the executive chairman job he took on a month and a half ago. The news sent Sallie’s deeply depressed shares up 13 percent in heavy trading.

While Lord will stay on as CEO and become a vice chairman, Sallie Mae named longtime banking-industry exec Tony Terracciano chairman and hired former Sallie exec Jack Remondi as another vice chairman. The shakeup comes after a disastrous December in which Sallie shares lost 47 percent of their value, as the company was forced to raise nearly $3 billion to close out a bad stock-market bet and rebuild its capital base. The lowlight of the month was a damaging conference call that ended with Lord declining to answer questions and telling his chief flack that it was time to “get the [expletive] out of here.”

Some observers have already begun a countdown to the day Lord does the same. In the meantime, he’s busy cooking up lame excuses for his unusually brief run as chairman.  “When I asked the Board to consider returning to a split of the chairman and chief executive positions,” Lord claims in the press release, “Tony was the logical choice to lead the Board.” Sallie goes on to note that it “has a 35-year history of separating the Board chair and chief executive roles, with the exception of the recent three-week period during which Mr. Lord held both positions.” It just so happens those were the worst three weeks in the company’s history.