The Cosell of banking.

Robert G. Wilmers, president and chief executive officer of First Empire State Corp., Buffalo, is at it again. In a 10-page letter to shareholders in the bank's annual report, he blasted nationwide bank consolidation.

"Banking doesn't need, the bank's customers don't need nationwide consolidation," Mr. Wilmers wrote.

In his letter last year he skewered fellow bank chairmen for overpaying themselves while their banks barely tread water.

Mr. Wilmers' prose may be influenced by Warren Buffett, another author of straight-talking annual reports. Mr. Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway Group invested $40 million in First Empire last year.

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