Fourth quarter results from continuing operations met or exceeded our long-term targets for earnings, revenues and, on a pro forma basis, return on equity. Higher spending by affluent consumers, small businesses and corporate Card members more than offset the impact of an industry-wide spike in bankruptcy filings before new legislation went into effect last October. |
I've been in the company since 1981 and involved in the card business since 1984, and I believe we are in the strongest position we've been in, ... I remain confident in our overall network strategy and our relationship with MBNA going forward. |
In light of this decision, we plan to resume our conversations with a number of banks -- now free to make a choice -- about possible card-issuing ventures, |
The actions we announced today are being taken to ensure that we're in a strong position to navigate through what we expect to be a longer period of economic weakness, |
We are making good progress on our reengineering initiatives, our risk profile is stronger, and some aspects of the economy -- particularly unemployment rates -- are looking better than we had anticipated at the start of the year, |
While we are seeing signs of improvement in volumes, we are continuing to take a cautious view and expect the economy to remain weak throughout 2002, |
While we were on target to meet prior consensus for third-quarter earnings, the terrorist attacks obviously had a significant impact on the overall economy and we saw clear evidence of that as consumer spending, business travel and investment activity slowed after Sept. 11, |