Get Your Checkbook
If bankers thought they gave a lot of money to politicians this year, recent appointments in the Senate suggested they had better be prepared to give even more. Both political parties assigned veterans of the Senate Banking Committee to run their Senate campaign committees, and both lawmakers come from states with large banks.
The GOP picked Sen. Elizabeth Dole from North Carolina to head its Senate campaign fund-raising effort. Banks already represented two of the top three donors to her campaign, with Charlotte-based Wachovia and Bank of America at Nos. 1 and 3, respectively, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.
The Democrats, meanwhile, selected New York Sen. Charles Schumer to head their campaign committee. Financial services firms were the top five donors to his campaign with Goldman Sachs, Citigroup Inc., J.P. Morgan Chase & Co., Credit Suisse First Boston, and Merrill Lynch & Co. in the lead, the center said.
Hot Seat for Cards
It has been observed more than once that when Mike Wallace shows up at your office, it is probably not a good thing.
"Frontline," a PBS news documentary show, doesn't have quite the same reputation - but it does have Lowell Bergman, a former "60 Minutes" producer whose fame got a boost when Al Pacino portrayed him in the 1999 movie "The Insider."
Mr. Bergman has the financial services industry in the sights of his latest project, "The Secret History of the Credit Card," which is scheduled to air Tuesday at 9 p.m. eastern time (check local listings). It features, among others, acting Comptroller of the Currency Julie Williams and the American Bankers Association's Ed Yingling, as well as New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer.
The show is shaping up as a long hour for credit card executives, not to mention their representatives and regulators.
And the Winner Is ...
Analysts have second-guessed New York Community Bancorp a lot this year, but the criticism did not deter Ernst & Young from bestowing a major honor on the company's chief executive, Joseph R. Ficalora.
Mr. Ficalora was scheduled to receive the Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year Award in the financial services category last weekend. He and nine other honorees - including overall winner H. Wayne Huizenga, the chairman of Huizenga Holdings of Fort Lauderdale, Fla. - were to be announced at a gala event in Palm Springs, Calif., on Saturday.
Mr. Ficalora beat out finalists Daniel P. Amos, the chairman and CEO of AFLAC Inc., and Gary L. Tilkin, thepresident and CEO of Global Futures and Forex Ltd., for the financial services award.
Mr. Ficalora took the Westbury, N.Y., company public in 1993 and oversaw several key acquisitions in the New York metropolitan area in recent years - including its $1.6 billion purchase of Roslyn Bancorp a year ago.
It has taken some jabs this year because of a couple of large loans to individual borrowers and its sizable portfolio of mortgage-backed securities, which has been pared.
Musical Chairs
The International Swaps and Derivatives Association Inc. has named Jonathan Moulds its new chairman, succeeding Keith Bailey of Merrill Lynch Capital Services, who had been chairman since March 2000. It was a good week for Mr. Moulds. Bank of America Corp. last Monday named him the head of its cross-product strategic trading, a new business venture. …
Sen.-elect John Thune, R-S.D., has stepped down from his board seat at First Midwest Financial Inc., the $780 million holding company in Storm Lake, Iowa. He joined the board in January 2003 after failing to unseat Sen. Tim Johnson, D-S.D. Former Rep. Thune defeated Sen. Thomas Daschle, D-S.D., this month and has told the bank he must resign all his board and related committee seats. The bank has not named a successor. …
Wayne Abernathy, the assistant secretary for financial institutions at the Treasury Department, artfully dodged questions this week about whether the White House plans to nominate him to be the next director of the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight.
With regard to the "musical chairs" of appointments going on right now, he said at a conference in New York on identity theft sponsored by American Express Corp., "Music is certainly playing, but people are still circling the chairs. I am sitting in my chair, and I am very comfortable here."
