| for
members only |
April
2002 |
 |
|
"The receptive
hearing we got in Raleigh last summer (to thwart SunTrust's
hostile bid), and the efforts of
NCCBI over the years, are the kinds of things that make our
business environment such an important asset to our state."
|
Read the complete text of
Thompson's speech
Economic
growth and public education
remain Wachovia priorities, Thompson says
Many
of those attending the NCCBI annual meeting deserve credit for
the successful merger between First Union and Wachovia, G.
Kennedy Thompson, president and CEO of the bank, said during
his luncheon speech. “We were successful in completing that
merger, and a lot of people in this room deserve credit for
helping make that happen. And one of the things that impressed
me is that our supporters were able to be so helpful on such
extremely short notice.
After
SunTrust Bank made a hostile bid for Wachovia, Thompson said
First Union leaders identified a strategically vital point in
the state law governing public companies and shareholder
rights that would be very helpful in fending off SunTrust.
“In
fact, the state legislature was very receptive to our point of
view and adopted the change very quickly and overwhelmingly,
which wound up being a key factor in our successfully
completing the merger.”
Thompson
continued: “There's a larger point to all that. Every time
we successfully recruit a company to North Carolina – or
persuade one that is already here to pick our state for a
major expansion - one of the factors always cited is North
Carolina's very positive business environment. The receptive
hearing we got in Raleigh last summer, and the efforts of
NCCBI over the years, are the kinds of things that make our
business environment such an important asset to our state. So
when I say to this group how appreciative I am, it is not just
rhetoric, but rather a conviction born of first-hand
experience.”
Today
the new Wachovia has 20 million customers, $330 billion in
assets and a quarter of a trillion dollars in assets under
management. To him, such impressive numbers “mean that at
Wachovia we have a huge responsibility. We must take the word
‘community’ and define it as broadly as we possibly can.
Historically, that is not something any of us have done very
well in North Carolina. We have plenty of examples of cities
in North Carolina that, looked at broadly, are obviously part
of what has come to be called the Miracle of the New South.
“From
Wilmington to Raleigh to Charlotte to Asheville, we have
cities that have grown and thrived and prospered. But get
outside those cities, and it is much harder to find evidence
of the prosperity that most of us enjoyed throughout the last
half of the 20th
century. And even within those burgeoning cities, the
prosperity has been distributed far too unevenly.
“So
it becomes one of Wachovia’s five major responsibilities to
be the vehicle through which economic opportunity is extended
to all segments of our communities, and to all corners of our
state. It is a responsibility I take very seriously, and I am
determined to get it right.”
Thompson
expressed a fairly optimistic view about economic trends.
“My view of our manufacturing economy is we have been in a
deep recession for some time. But in service-based economy we
have experienced a fairly shallow recession that is coming to
an end. I look for that to be followed by a very solid
economic recovery that is already becoming visible.
“A
great many of the low-skill, moderate-wage jobs that
traditionally have sustained North Carolina families have
moved elsewhere. That job migration will continue. And the
jobs are not coming back. Therefore, we must retrain workers
whose jobs are being eliminated in this ever-evolving process.
And we must give everyone in our next generation of workers
the opportunity to prepare for the high-tech jobs and the
knowledge jobs of the future. Intellectual capital will
increasingly be the currency in this world economy. And the
only source of that capital is our educational system,”
Thompson added.
He
said Wachovia will continue the Education First initiative
that encourages employees to volunteer in schools, matches
financial contributions to educational institutions, awards
scholarships to children of employees, provides educational
tools to parents of young children and recognizes outstanding
achievements by superintendents, principals and teachers. The
bank also will continue a policy that allows every employee
four hours of paid time off each month to volunteer in schools
or other educational programs, and will maintain its Reading
First program that promotes early childhood literacy.
“Those
of us in the private sector… must play a role in helping
raise educational standards. If we are managing a company, the
sustainability of our effort comes down to one factor: The
quality of the labor force -- which really means the quality
of education. There is nothing more important than
contributing to a constant effort to improve the quality of
our public education,” Thompson concluded.
Return to Page One
|
|
|
