Angel >> Activist shareholder Yves Michaud. For stopping the show at the Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce's annual shareholders' meeting. Michaud's presentation and nine proposals--including one that executives' salaries be capped at an amount 20 times the average remuneration of a bank employee--caused shareholders to stand up and applaud. Though all nine proposals were defeated, the Michaud Show, undaunted, took up the cause in Ottawa once again last Tuesday at the Bank of Nova Scotia's annual meeting, where he met with much the same rousing response. Rock on.

Insect >> Bank of Montreal chairman and chief executive officer Matthew Barrett. Here's Barrett's description of the fateful meeting at a Bank of Montreal eggnog party attended by Royal Bank CEO John Cleghorn last December 19: "John gate-crashed the Christmas party I was having. I fed him, because I'm not sure the Royal has the budget for it anymore. So I decided to give him some Christmas cheer, like a homeless person." The Good Samaritan and the homeless person collectively earned $6.4 million in 1997; their banks collectively pulled in profits of $2.99 billion. Source: The Globe and Mail.