Public Meeting Regarding Fleet Financial Group, Inc., and BankBoston Corporation
Wednesday, July 7, 1999
Presiding Officer's Remarks
3 PRESIDING OFFICER SMITH: Thank you,
4 Richard. I am pleased to welcome you to this
5 important public meeting on the application by Fleet
6 Financial Group to acquire BankBoston Corporation.
7 Richard has already done so, but for the record I'll
8 go ahead and introduce myself. I am Dolores Smith,
9 Director of the Division of Consumer and Community
10 Affairs at the Federal Reserve Board in Washington,
11 D.C. I'll be the Presiding Officer for this
12 meeting.
13 Other members of our panel include two from
14 the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston and two from the
15 Board. First, Boston, we have Bill McDonough on my
16 extreme right, the bank's General Counsel. Then at
17 my extreme left Lynn Browne, Senior Vice President,
18 Research and Statistics.
19 From the Board on my left, Myron Kwast, who
20 is the Associate Director for the Division of
21 Research and Statistics, and to my right Scott
22 Alvarez, who is the Associate General Counsel.
23 We are here today because Fleet Financial
24 Group, Boston, Massachusetts, has applied for
25 approval to acquire BankBoston Corporation, Boston,
0011
1 Massachusetts. When the Federal Reserve considers
2 one of these applications, we look at a number of
3 factors under the Bank Holding Company Act. These
4 include financial issues, managerial issues,
5 competitive issues, and the convenience and needs of
6 the communities affected. In doing so, we
7 particularly look at the record of performance of
8 the parties under the Community Reinvestment Act.
9 The Community Reinvestment Act requires the
10 Board to take into account an institution's record
11 of meeting the credit needs of its entire community.
12 The Fleet-BankBoston application also
13 involves the proposed acquisition or retention of
14 nonbanking companies engaged in activities
15 permissible for bank holding companies. The Federal
16 Reserve Board must determine whether the proposed
17 nonbanking activities can reasonably be expected to
18 produce benefits to the public that outweigh
19 possible adverse effects such as undue concentration
20 of resources, decreased or unfair competition,
21 conflicts of interest or unsound banking practices.
22 The purpose of the public meeting today is
23 to receive information regarding these factors. We
24 will be seeking to elicit this information and to
25 clarify factual issues related to the application.
0012
1 We are very pleased that so many people
2 have been willing to come and testify at the public
3 meeting today. We expect to have more than 160
4 groups and individuals represented during the course
5 of the meeting.
6 And I want to tell you a little bit about
7 the procedures. This is what is called an informal
8 public meeting. Members of this panel may ask those
9 who are testifying about their testimony. This is
10 not a formal administrative hearing, so we are not
11 bound by rules regarding evidence,
12 cross-examination, and some of the formal trappings
13 of that kind of proceeding.
14 As you can see from the agenda, we have a
15 very long day ahead of us and we will need to stick
16 to the schedule closely so that everyone who has
17 asked to offer oral testimony will have a chance to
18 do so at the appointed time. We ask the witnesses
19 to be mindful of the needs of others and to help us
20 stay on schedule.
21 The witnesses on each panel will be
22 expected to stay within their allotted times. We
23 have a signal system that we will be using. We have
24 two timers seated at -- two timekeepers seated at
25 the table, and we will also have panels that are of
0013
1 varying sizes, so that for most of the panels the
2 witnesses will have between three and five minutes
3 to present their oral statements. In a few
4 instances the witnesses have been allotted slightly
5 longer times. The timekeeper will give you a signal
6 generally when there is one minute remaining to
7 speak and another -- do you want to hold that up in
8 both directions so that the people in back can see
9 you. And then there is a second card that they will
10 hold up when the time is up.
11 And sometimes it's hard for the witnesses
12 to be looking at the panel, the Federal Reserve
13 panel, and also to be minding the timekeeper, so
14 there may be times when the witness doesn't notice
15 that the "Please Finish" sign has been held up, in
16 which case the timekeeper will give an audio signal,
17 and we'll try to call your attention to that.
18 You will also see from the schedule that we
19 in several cases do have a rather large number of
20 persons on a given panel, and they will each have
21 about one minute at the microphone. This we have
22 done so that we can provide an opportunity for all
23 of these persons individually to have their say
24 before this public meeting.
25 Finally, there may be some persons who were
0014
1 unable to sign up in advance, so to the extent
2 possible we want to give them a chance to speak as
3 well. We have scheduled toward the end of today's
4 meeting an open-mike period when we will make the
5 microphone available to any member of the public who
6 wants to make an oral presentation, time permitting.
7 Witnesses at this public meeting also may
8 submit a written supplement to their oral testimony,
9 but they must do so by next Wednesday, July 14th,
10 and then the record will be closed. Any written
11 supplements should be directed to Jennifer J.
12 Johnson, Secretary of the Board, Federal Reserve
13 Board, Washington, D.C. 20551. They must be
14 received by 5:00 p.m. Eastern Daylight Time on the
15 14th. Submissions also could be faxed to Area Code
16 202-452-3462.
17 Witnesses, if you have not turned in copies
18 of your written testimony or if you have any other
19 written statement to put into the record, please
20 leave it with the Federal Reserve staff at the
21 registration table. It is important that we get
22 this information for the record. A transcript of
23 the meeting will be available by probably Monday,
24 July the 12th, through the Federal Reserve Bank of
25 Boston and through the Federal Reserve Board.
0015
1 In addition, the official transcript will
2 be available by the close of business July the 14th
3 on the Board's public Web site at
4 www.bog.frb.fed.us.
5 And with that, let's begin the proceedings
6 and have members of our first panel.
7 In the interest of time, what I'll ask is
8 that you each state your name, organization, and
9 then we'll start with that.
10 MR. MURRAY: I'm Terry Murray, Chairman of
11 Fleet Bank Group.
12 MR. GIFFORD: I'm Chad Gifford, Chairman,
13 BankBoston.
14 MS. SNOWDEN: Gail Snowden, Managing
15 Director, BankBoston.
16 MS. SCANLAN: Agnes Bundy Scanlan, Managing
17 Director of Fleet Financial Group.
18 PRESIDING OFFICER SMITH: Mr. Murray.