Public Meeting Regarding Fleet Financial Group, Inc., and BankBoston Corporation
Wednesday, July 7, 1999
Transcript of Panel Ten
16 MS. WEBSTER: Good afternoon. My name is
17 Elizabeth Webster. I'm here from Ithaca, New York,
18 which is the true upstate region of New York State.
19 I'm here without statistics or media or
20 T-shirts or a group behind me. I have a story of a
21 phone call from a community development corporation
22 -- to a community development corporation from an
23 economic opportunity corporation.
24 We asked the absurd. We asked Fleet Bank
25 to think as a philanthropist. In fact, they were
0259
1 able to do that at every turn. We need to become
2 self-sufficient in our community so we can continue
3 to serve the 5,000 clients or consumers who we are
4 guiding on their road to self-sufficiency.
5 Fleet Bank came to the table. Then they
6 got on a plane, they came to Tompkins County, they
7 listened to the real people that are the statistics
8 that have been quoted today, the people who need
9 help with their heat bill, the people who need to
10 use a food pantry, people who are learning the
11 skills to save money for their own home.
12 They met what we like to consider reality,
13 and then they went back to their bottom line, and
14 they tried it again and again and again. And the
15 bottom line finally was able to satisfy us and them.
16 And now because of that, we have $1.5 million that
17 will enable an institution to become completely
18 self-sufficient.
19 HEARING OFFICER SMITH: Thank you very
20 much.
21 MS. FLYNN: My name is Denise Flynn. I'm
22 the vice-president of Junior Achievement for
23 Northern New England.
24 For several decades, BankBoston and Fleet
25 have worked together to support our organizations
0260
1 which teaches kids in grades K through 12 about
2 business and how business works.
3 Although BankBoston has been one of our
4 largest supporters, we have also received support
5 from Fleet. Together, the banks have helped JA to
6 grow from serving 5,000 students ten years ago to
7 over 50,000 students this month.
8 We're an organization that serves all kinds
9 of students. In the past few years, we've tried to
10 focus our efforts on programs and schools where
11 students have least access to business people. In
12 Boston alone, we serve more than 6,000 students who
13 were able to meet a business person this year.
14 In addition, volunteers from Fleet and
15 BankBoston have enabled Junior Achievement to extend
16 its reach to areas like Lynn, Lawrence, Lowell,
17 Quincy, Worcester and Springfield. In short, the
18 banks have actively supported volunteers in schools
19 throughout New England.
20 We at Junior Achievement hope that the
21 merger will solidify our presence in New England,
22 and we hope that the combined banks will help us to
23 build a critical mass of volunteers at the new
24 larger bank that will enable us to reach 20 percent
25 of the student population by the year 2005.
0261
1 This may or may not have been possible
2 without the merger, but clearly would have been
3 impossible if a non-New England bank had assumed
4 control of either bank.
5 Thank you.
6 HEARING OFFICER SMITH: Thank you.
7 MS. WHITLOCK: Hello. My name is Linda
8 Whitlock, and I'm speaking as president and CEO of
9 Boys and Girls Clubs of Boston. And I speak on
10 unabashedly in support of the merger.
11 I'm speaking on behalf of nearly 7,000
12 citizens, some of the poorest neighborhoods in
13 Boston and Chelsea, citizens whose voices are absent
14 today because they are children and teens who are
15 doing what children and teens should be doing on a
16 hot day in July. They're at our clubs learning to
17 swim, to surf the Net safely, to cooperate with
18 peers, to confide in a trusted adult, all because of
19 the notable generosity of donors like BankBoston and
20 Fleet Bank. Stellar corporate citizens, these two
21 banks, and BankBoston in particular, are peerless in
22 their charitable giving to inner-city programs like
23 ours.
24 Since 1978 BankBoston has given our
25 organization in excess of $800,000 for program and
0262
1 building needs. Similarly, Fleet has provided us
2 with nearly $300,000. Maintaining the corporate
3 headquarters in Boston will ensure that there is no
4 diminution of civic and philanthropic involvement on
5 the part of the new merged entity.
6 I'm honored to endorse the merger on behalf
7 of our courageous, worthy and very grateful boys and
8 girls.
9 Thank you for letting me speak today.
10 HEARING OFFICER SMITH: Thank you.
11 DR. SMITH: Good afternoon. My name is
12 Jane Smith, and I am a member of the Fleet INCITY
13 Advisory Board. I'm also president and CEO of the
14 National Council of Negro Women, with a membership
15 of over 450,000 women of African descent.
16 Previously, I directed the Atlanta Project at the
17 Carter Presidential Center, which was about
18 neighborhoods and corporations being partners to
19 improve our citizens' lives.
20 I endorse the merger. I endorse the merger
21 because my job has a simple job description, which
22 is to be the watchdog for African-American women in
23 terms of commerce and banking. I have thoroughly
24 enjoyed as a member of the INCITY Board seeing the
25 balance and response to change that Fleet offers as
0263
1 they look in the inner city to see what women need
2 to have wholesome families with or without a partner
3 in the same household.
4 I have appreciated the support systems that
5 have been given to women in terms of training that
6 the banks have offered, guidance by the appropriate
7 kinds of staff being hired, even those who speak
8 other languages, so that the women do not have
9 difficulty in making their way through the services
10 of the particular banks.
11 It is important that BankBoston and Fleet
12 have the opportunity to continue their work and to
13 continue it together. Thank you.
14 HEARING OFFICER SMITH: Thank you.
15 MR. GUZZI: Good afternoon. My name is
16 Paul Guzzi, and I'm president and CEO of the Greater
17 Boston Chamber of Commerce.
18 Boston is a vibrant, world-class city with
19 important cultural, education, and medical
20 institutions, as well as an innovative economy. A
21 great city like Boston should have a world-class
22 bank located within its borders to meet our unique
23 regional needs. This merger ensures that result.
24 But we should also judge this merger by whether
25 Fleet-Boston can meet very high standards in terms
0264
1 of customer service, community outreach, and
2 investment in corporate citizenship.
3 I am convinced that Fleet-Boston is
4 committed to maintain high performance standards in
5 each of these areas; and for those reasons, we
6 encourage you to support this merger.
7 MR. MEADE: Good afternoon. Thank you for
8 this opportunity to testify.
9 My name is Peter Meade. I come to you as
10 an individual who is a customer of Fleet Bank and as
11 an individual who ran an organization, a regional
12 business organization, that had been supported by a
13 line of credit from Fleet Bank.
14 I want to say to you that the leadership of
15 both banks and their contribution to this community
16 range from laudable to singularly extraordinary
17 kinds of contributions that many times businesses
18 don't make. They have played an important part as
19 the pillars of this community.
20 I also believe that if this merger had not
21 taken place, the man you talk to at the bank would
22 be answering the phone in Atlanta or North Carolina,
23 in New York or San Francisco. And so I strongly
24 urge you to approve this merger.
25 HEARING OFFICER SMITH: Thank you very
0265
1 much.
2 MR. MACDONALD: My name is Alan Macdonald,
3 and I'm the executive director of the Massachusetts
4 Business Roundtable, which is a group of 75
5 executives from leading institutions in the state,
6 leading by nature of their size and activity in the
7 economy. We really exist to help those large
8 institutions be involved in channeling their public
9 involvement for the improvement of the quality of
10 life in Massachusetts, and we have existed for 20
11 years in doing that kind of service.
12 We work very closely with headquartered
13 businesses in Massachusetts, and we find that the
14 effectiveness of the public involvement really is
15 helped tremendously by the headquarters in
16 Massachusetts, and by the fact that the leading
17 executives are here, part of the community, part of
18 the life, and that they are able to see the needs of
19 the community in helping the institutions to support
20 those needs.
21 As a practical matter, what is happening in
22 the banking industry as we see it, around the world
23 in fact, is that it takes some financial size to
24 remain independent. And to be headquartered in
25 Massachusetts, we want to have a bank that has the
0266
1 financial size to provide the very resources that we
2 note today that we worry about losing and not having
3 administered in a proper way.
4 We think that the kinds of problems we hear
5 today, whether they're CRA or otherwise directed,
6 are the kinds that we have public officials to worry
7 about regardless of size. And we really favor this
8 combination of Fleet Financial Group and BankBoston
9 so that we will have the resources in our community
10 to be placed in the very spots that we worry about
11 losing those resources. So we support, and hope you
12 will, the combination.
13 Thank you very much.
14 HEARING OFFICER SMITH: Thank you very
15 much.
16 MR. JUSTIS: My name is Robert Justis. I'm
17 here to speak in support of the merger. I prepared
18 15 minutes worth of comments, and I have submitted
19 them for the record. I can't speak that fast, so
20 I'll just excerpt a couple of the comments.
21 I'm presently the economic development
22 director for the Central Vermont Public Service
23 Corporation and also a member of the Fleet INCITY
24 Advisory Board.
25 Immediately prior to my present job, I was
0267
1 for over four years the CEO of a nonprofit community
2 development corporation -- Northern Community
3 Investment Corporation -- that serves the Northeast
4 Kingdom and the North Country of New Hampshire, six
5 counties having as many square miles as the State of
6 Connecticut and some of the highest concentrations
7 of poverty in northern New England.
8 It was at NCIC that I first came to know
9 well and develop great respect for Fleet Financial
10 Group. During the time I spent with NCIC between
11 1990 and 1994, Fleet was an active partner with us
12 in our housing development and business lending
13 activities.
14 You will recall that the early '90s were
15 especially difficult economic times in northern New
16 England. Both Fleet and NCIC had our share of
17 troubled clients and projects together. Throughout
18 this difficult period, Fleet was diligent and fair
19 in working with NCIC, and both organizations
20 survived intact and continued to do good work.
21 I sincerely hope that you will approve the
22 merger in the interests of the communities of our
23 service area.
24 Thank you very much for the opportunity to
25 speak.
0268
1 HEARING OFFICER SMITH: Thank you very
2 much, and we appreciate having your longer statement
3 for the record.
4 MR. BRETT: Former Congressman Mo Udall
5 once said, "Everything has been said, but not by
6 everyone," so I'll be extremely brief here.
7 My name is Jim Brett, and I'm the president
8 and CEO of the New England Council. New England
9 Council is the oldest regional business organization
10 in the United States. It is made up of large and
11 small companies, academic and health institutions,
12 nonprofit and for-profit; and our purpose is to
13 promote economic growth and high quality of life in
14 New England.
15 If we were giving out a gold medal this
16 year, it would go to Fleet Bank for the work that
17 they have done on behalf the New England economy
18 promoting economic vitality.
19 I am here in support of a combination of
20 Fleet Financial and BankBoston. The Chamber of
21 Commerce here in Boston did a study last year, and
22 they talked about one of the leading industries here
23 in greater Boston area, financial services, in
24 particular the banking industry.
25 With this new combination of two major
0269
1 banks, it will be a major player here in the city
2 and the state and the region. It has already been
3 alluded to about this could have been a worst-case
4 scenario of an outside bank coming in and bringing
5 about a merger. This merge makes sense for the
6 city, it makes sense for the region. So I think
7 there are tremendous benefits here.
8 They have been an outstanding neighbor, a
9 citizen. You have heard the testimony this morning
10 about all of the volunteer hours that they give. I
11 think this is good news for our region. I look
12 forward to the merger being enacted.
13 Thank you very much for your attention.
14 HEARING OFFICER SMITH: Thank you very
15 much.
16 MR. MACHTLEY: Hello. My name is Ron
17 Machtley. I've been a lifelong resident of Rhode
18 Island. During my adult years, I've been a naval
19 officer, a lawyer, for six years a United States
20 Congressman, and now I'm president of Bryant College
21 in Smithfield, Rhode Island.
22 From these various vantage points I have
23 observed both BankBoston and Fleet Financial. They
24 have been wonderful corporate citizens of our state,
25 taking care of our citizens.
0270
1 I believe, as a college which has
2 instituted the first financial service program in
3 New England, that banking is going to change
4 dramatically just as the telecommunications industry
5 has. If we do not have a large regional bank, we
6 will be taken over by an out-of-region bank or a
7 bank out of this country. It is absolutely
8 important to our region that we have CEOs who are
9 New Englanders, who are here to take care of us.
10 There are those who testified today that
11 there is need for capital to low, medium, moderate,
12 and minority populations. I agree with that. But
13 where Fleet has excelled and BankBoston has excelled
14 is not just in capital, but ensuring that the people
15 in our state and our region have education.
16 They have provided a Women's Resource
17 Summit in which over 600 women came to Bryant
18 College at no cost to learn the fundamentals of
19 business entrepreneurship, financial resource and
20 management. They've provided capital for our joint
21 venture Bryant School of Design. BankBoston funded
22 our World Trade Day where 600 businesses learned.
23 This is an organization, both at BankBoston
24 and Fleet Financial, which is committed to our
25 region. And for that reason, I strongly support the
0271
1 merger and hope that you will support it as well.
2 Thank you very much.
3 HEARING OFFICER SMITH: Thank you very
4 much.
5 MR. SOTO: Good afternoon. My name is
6 Felix Soto. I'm the owner of J&M Auto Sales located
7 at 235 Hyde Park Avenue in Jamaica Plain.
8 I am in favor of this merger because three
9 years ago I came to Fleet Bank from another banking
10 institution, and Fleet really took a serious look at
11 my situation and where I wanted to go.
12 Ever since, I have been growing. Fleet has
13 supported me 100 percent. They have given me
14 several lines of credit and loans, and also they
15 have approved loans to buy property where my
16 business is, which other banking institutions didn't
17 do. And also they have given me a piece of the
18 American dream, to own my own house, and I'm very
19 thankful for that.
20 I thank Ron Walker that was the person who
21 really introduced me to the Fleet CDC, Grant
22 Patterson and Mark Hartunian, who helped me in every
23 way possible. I really thank you, Fleet Bank, and I
24 am in favor of the merger.
25 Thank you very much.
0272
1 HEARING OFFICER SMITH: Thank you very
2 much.
3 MR. TORRES: My name is Felix Torres. I'm
4 the executive director of Manchester Neighborhood
5 Housing Services in New Hampshire. We're the
6 largest community-based, nonprofit housing developer
7 in the State of New Hampshire. I'm here to support
8 the merger, and that should come as no surprise.
9 We provide affordable housing. We do home
10 ownership lending and counseling, and we do
11 community advocacy. Fleet and BankBoston have been
12 partners of ours from the very beginning, and I'm
13 not here to dwell on the past. But it is important
14 to say that their commitment has been total, it has
15 been innovative, it has been creative, and it has
16 been substantial.
17 We believe the merger is important, one,
18 because we need a large bank in New England. I
19 don't want to call Columbus. I don't want to go to
20 New York. I don't want to go to Charlotte. Boston
21 is about as far as I want to travel to talk to a
22 banker.
23 Second, we think that the sum of the whole
24 ought to be greater than the individual parts. Our
25 history, we have gone through mergers before with
0273
1 both BankBoston and Fleet. In each case in
2 Manchester, they have put more resources on the
3 street to help low-income families and low-income
4 neighborhoods.
5 Finally, we have a long relationship with
6 Fleet and BankBoston. We know how to work with
7 them, and we look forward to continuing to work with
8 them as a unified entity.
9 HEARING OFFICER SMITH: Thank you very
10 much.
11 MR. JOHNSON: Good afternoon. My name is
12 Douglas Johnson. I'm president of Heritage
13 Consulting Group, a Providence-based firm, a
14 management consulting firm that has the privilege
15 over the last ten years of working with Fleet
16 Financial Group.
17 We were first engaged by Fleet back in 1989
18 with the opportunity to support the development of
19 its initial Community Reinvestment Act statement.
20 Since that time, we have grown as a firm, as a
21 little, small business in Rhode Island, to the point
22 where now we have a wide variety of clients that are
23 based both here in New England and elsewhere in the
24 United States.
25 We're here today to support this merger
0274
1 because we believe it provides an opportunity for
2 small businesses such as ours to interact and to
3 obtain important business from major corporations
4 such as Fleet, BankBoston.
5 It has been a great relationship for our
6 firm. We have, over the years, managed to grow our
7 business to the point where we believe that if other
8 businesses follow a similar pattern, they too will
9 benefit enormously from this proposed merger.
10 We thank you for this opportunity and
11 certainly endorse what is being proposed before you.
12 Thank you.
13 HEARING OFFICER SMITH: Thank you very
14 much.
15 MR. LANGLEY: My name is Dennis Langley,
16 the executive director for the Urban League of Rhode
17 Island.
18 The global society means more than
19 geographical location to us. It requires
20 organizations and businesses to position themselves
21 for survival. The mega-society sees distance as no
22 obstacle in transacting businesses; therefore,
23 innovative thinking and concepts must be developed.
24 Fleet Bank, in conjunction with Boston,
25 recognizes the need to readjust and to position
0275
1 itself for survival within our society. We need
2 that within the Northeast Region. Failing to do
3 that, someone else will take the task and move on
4 with the system, which obviously would leave it to
5 be noncompliant to many of the concerns you have
6 heard earlier on. We are, therefore, in support of
7 this merger.
8 Two concerns: one, that they continue
9 their CRA policies; two, we look at the downsizing
10 and the employment of those individuals that will be
11 laid off. We are concerned with that, because if
12 they do that, that will be to the demise of our
13 society.
14 Finally, please, Fleet needs us. We need
15 Fleet and BankBoston. We wholeheartedly support
16 this venture. The merger is important. It is
17 productive to our community. Please don't let
18 another agency or another business come in to take
19 over. Grant them the opportunity to do what is
20 prudent for us in this community.
21 Thank you.
22 HEARING OFFICER SMITH: Thank you very
23 much.
24 MS. SATTERWHITE: Good afternoon. My name
25 is Cherylyn Satterwhite. I'm the executive director
0276
1 of the Dunbar Community Center in Springfield,
2 Mass., and I am speaking I guess for western
3 Massachusetts, I do believe.
4 I have a stack of cards, and I'm trying to
5 figure out how to summarize these cards for you.
6 I thought I might speak to Fleet in an
7 instance or perspective that has not been spoken to,
8 since I've been here at least, and that is Fleet's
9 commitment to youth development.
10 Fleet and BankBoston I've had very
11 favorable experiences with over the past several
12 years. Like most banks, they maintain seats on our
13 board of directors, contributing annually to
14 operating expenses, but show some flexibility and
15 are able to respond additionally in times of
16 expenses, Fleet keeping children warm when boilers
17 burn in the middle of the winter.
18 Fleet, through Agnes Scanlon, helped to
19 move the agency's technology to the 21st century,
20 assuring that inner-city kids will have equal
21 opportunity and access to computer literacy and to
22 the wonderful world of the Web.
23 The Center has embarked on a $4.5 million
24 capital campaign. Fleet again has taken a major
25 role in leadership of developing young children.
0277
1 The campaign is chaired by the Western Mass.
2 regional president, Richard Bilowitz. The New
3 Building Steering Committee is co-chaired by a Fleet
4 officer, Neal McBride, who has shared resources for
5 many years to the Center.
6 Through the efforts of Glenn Davis and
7 Martin Guiten, the Fleet CDC has extended a
8 significant line of credit to help us move forward
9 toward developing young people and producing
10 productive citizens.
11 So we speak in favor of this merger and
12 Fleet's demonstration of support for developing
13 youth. Thank you.
14 MR. CAMPBELL: Good afternoon. My name is
15 Jeff Campbell. I'm president and CEO of Cuts and
16 Creations, Inc. We were founded in 1994. We're a
17 unisex hair salon, barber shop. We have one store
18 in the Westgate Mall in Brockton. That's our
19 headquarters store. We have a brother store in the
20 Mystic Mall in Chelsea called Just Cuts.
21 Cuts and Creations is a growing company.
22 We have about 37 employees now. We just recently
23 signed a ten-year lease with the Arsenal Mall in
24 Watertown Massachusetts for an expansion store
25 called Cuts and Creation II.
0278
1 We would like to thank Fleet and the CDC
2 and also the SBA for the opportunity for us to grow.
3 We both employ about 20 to 25 more employees in the
4 community. And I signed a lease, I didn't have the
5 funds, but we went to Fleet, and they granted us the
6 funds, and they have been working with me strong.
7 Mark Hartunian, Grant Patterson, and a
8 mixture of Fleet CDC and the SBA have been good to
9 Cuts and Creations, Inc. And I think it's a help
10 and a good help to the community, and the merger
11 would help the community also.
12 I'd also like to say thanks, from Jeff
13 Campbell who is here from the company, to Fleet, and
14 I hope you guys grant the merger.
15 Thank you.
16 HEARING OFFICER SMITH: Thank you very
17 much.
18 MR. SCHWARTZ: Good afternoon. My name is
19 Eric Schwartz. I'm the cofounder and president of
20 Citizens Schools.
21 Our mission at Citizens Schools is to help
22 educate children and strengthen the community
23 through a network of ten after-school and summer
24 school programs spread across the City of Boston.
25 We have had a chance to work closely with both Fleet
0279
1 Bank and, particularly in the last year, BankBoston
2 in developing really a network of adults who can get
3 involved in kids' lives.
4 I have here the course catalogues
5 representing 124 different courses are being offered
6 to 9-to-14-year-old children this summer, all led by
7 volunteers in this community, ranging from
8 seamstresses who work out of their home, to small
9 funeral home operators in Roslindale, to employees
10 of large institutions like BankBoston and Fidelity.
11 I guess the message that I would leave you
12 with is that when it comes to corporate citizenship,
13 bigger can be better. And in the case of
14 BankBoston, they have really worked with us in a
15 very hand-tailored way. We have had an opportunity
16 to work with employees in this very large
17 organization and have them provide very hand-
18 tailored and wonderful personalized support to
19 children in Boston.
20 So thank you, and I do support the merger.
21 HEARING OFFICER SMITH: Thank you very
22 much.
23 MR. LIEBERMAN: Hi. I'm Aaron Lieberman,
24 president and CEO and one of the founders of
25 Jumpstart. Thank you very much for letting me
0280
1 speak, especially before this cutoff.
2 I am here because five years ago, when I
3 first wanted to start Jumpstart as a 22-year-old
4 right out of college, I had a dream and absolutely
5 no hope of getting anyone to support us in the City
6 of Boston, but two local institutions really
7 responded.
8 The Fleet trust officer met with us,
9 figured out what could work, and provided one of our
10 first grants to get Jumpstart up and going.
11 BankBoston shortly followed with becoming one of our
12 first real corporate sponsors to support all of our
13 aspects.
14 I think that just tells part of the story
15 of how they have helped us build Jumpstart into a
16 national organization, now based in Boston, but
17 touching the lives of over 1,000 preschoolers this
18 summer. There have been so many different ways, but
19 the involvement has really been quite deep.
20 In New Haven BankBoston has been one of our
21 lead corporate sponsors. Kim Alene, a BankBoston
22 staff person, has served on our Boston Board of
23 Advisors. Volunteers from both banks have served
24 regularly at our service days. Even the little
25 stuff, the furniture that we all sit on in our
0281
1 headquarters was donated through BankBoston, and
2 they have even provided countless conference space
3 and things like that. For us it has been an
4 important partnership on all levels, and they have
5 really helped us make change.
6 Thanks.
7 HEARING OFFICER SMITH: Thank you very
8 much.
9 MR. AXELROD: Good afternoon, ladies and
10 gentlemen. My name is Carl Axelrod, and I chair the
11 New England Regional Board of the Anti-Defamation
12 League. As chairman I have the honor of delivering
13 to you the remarks -- or excerpts from the remarks,
14 given the one-minute limitation -- of Lenny Zakim,
15 our esteemed executive director who could not be
16 with us today.
17 We at the New England Office of the ADL are
18 pleased to be here today to support this merger and
19 to participate in this important hearing. We were
20 founded as a Jewish civil rights organization in
21 1913 to combat anti-Semitism and all forms of
22 bigotry and to secure equal justice for all.
23 To translate those democratic ideals into
24 action, we have utilized public advocacy, education,
25 coalition building, and programmatic initiatives
0282
1 that connect people of different racial, religious
2 and ethnic groups and economic classes with each
3 other and our community.
4 We have been fortunate at ADL in New
5 England in having Fleet participate with us in many
6 creative and new programs, including Black Jewish
7 Seder, the Catholic Jewish Seder, Team Harmony in
8 particular, and A World of Difference. The A World
9 of Difference program was supported initially by
10 Fleet and by one other major corporation. They have
11 been fantastic in terms of the financial support as
12 well as in the volunteer help that they have given
13 to us.
14 And with your permission, I would like to
15 submit the remarks of Lenny Zakim to the Board.
16 HEARING OFFICER SMITH: Yes. Please do.
17 MR. WIDMER: My name is Michael Widmer.
18 For the past seven years, I've been president of the
19 Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation, a nonprofit
20 organization dealing with fiscal, tax and economic
21 issues in Massachusetts.
22 Both Fleet and BankBoston are strong
23 supporters of the Foundation and have taken an
24 active part in our activities. Most recently, for
25 example, BankBoston underwrote a major study of the
0283
1 Massachusetts economy which we released last week.
2 I want to emphasize two points. The first
3 is that having a corporate headquarters in Boston
4 makes a huge difference in terms of that company's
5 commitment to the community, whether that commitment
6 takes the form of leadership, dollars, volunteer
7 support, or an overall level of energy.
8 Secondly, financial services institutions
9 headquartered here have been particularly
10 conscientious in meeting their public
11 responsibilities, including both BankBoston and
12 Fleet.
13 In contrast, when local corporations are
14 bought by out-of-state entities, a sharply reduced
15 commitment to this community inevitably follows.
16 Given these facts, the merger of Fleet and
17 BankBoston with headquarters in Boston is especially
18 important for this city, state, and region.
19 Thank you.
20 HEARING OFFICER SMITH: Thank you very
21 much.
22 MR. REICKER: My name is Edward Lane
23 Reicker. I've been a banking lawyer for nearly 40
24 years and a banking law teacher for about 20. I
25 will leave some remarks with the panel.
0284
1 But in brief, it seems to me that if the
2 past 20 years teaches us anything, it is that
3 mergers of this magnitude are inevitable. So the
4 only real question is whether this merger is
5 superior to some of the other kinds of mergers that
6 might come along if this merger is not approved.
7 And it seems to me that the banking public
8 and borrowers will be better served by dealing with
9 bankers that they know in Boston, rather than
10 bankers in perhaps San Francisco or New York or
11 Frankfurt. I think that would even be true for
12 community activists who would rather negotiate their
13 demands with bankers they know.
14 And, finally, it seems to me that as a
15 citizen of Massachusetts and a resident of Boston,
16 both Massachusetts and Boston will be better places
17 if they are the home of a major global banking
18 organization.
19 Thank you.
20 HEARING OFFICER SMITH: Thank you.
21 MR. BROWN: I'm David Brown, the CFO and
22 part owner of the Purple Cactus, which a burrito and
23 wrap bar. We have two locations, one in the South
24 End and one now in Jamaica Plain. I have menus if
25 anybody is hungry.
0285
1 This winter we were at a critical juncture.
2 We had eroded a lot of our capital. We had lost
3 some money through mistakes. We had one really
4 strong store, and we found a great location.
5 We went around to talk to banks. I heard a
6 lot of "We don't do restaurants. You're not making
7 money. Come back in a year." But we found a bank,
8 Fleet, that really believed in us. They came, Grant
9 Patterson, others came. They met with us, they ate
10 the food, they saw our lines. They took our
11 financials, and three weeks later we had conditional
12 approval.
13 A lot of work went on from there, but they
14 really made us turn the business around, and we're
15 very grateful. And if that's what they are going to
16 do for small businesses as a combined entity, the
17 area will be better off.
18 Thank you.
19 HEARING OFFICER SMITH: And, last.
20 MR. FARRELL: My name is William Farrell.
21 I'm general counsel to the Rhode Island Bankers
22 Association. The RIBA is the major trade banking
23 association for the banking community in Rhode
24 Island. Bank of Boston, through its former
25 subsidiary The Rhode Island Hospital Trust, and
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1 Fleet have been active members in our association
2 since its inception in 1915.
3 One of the major objectives of our
4 association has been to develop the legal and
5 regulatory environment that would foster the
6 development of a major national banking association
7 located here in New England. I believe that this
8 proposed merger goes a long way in accomplishing
9 that objective.
10 I have also had numerous opportunities to
11 work with both institutions on community issues, and
12 I believe the initiatives that have been approved in
13 the past will continue with this new merger.
14 Thank you.
15 HEARING OFFICER SMITH: Thank you very
16 much.
17 At the Presiding Officer's prerogative, we
18 are going to skip for the moment Panels 11 and 12
19 and go to Panel 13, which includes Congressman
20 Barney Frank and Congressman Delahunt. If you would
21 come on up.
22 (Pause)
23 HEARING OFFICER SMITH: I'm pleased to
24 welcome you, and if you would start.