Archive for April, 2009

Discover Meeting

Friday, April 24th, 2009

I attended the Discover meeting in Chicago on Tuesday to deliver a shareholder statement on predatory credit card practices, which is shown below. The meeting was short (around 30 minutes) and went well. I met with Craig Streem (shareholder relations), Simon Halfin (senior counsel) and Kathryn McNamara Corley (general counsel), who were welcoming and made sure all the logistics were taken care of. And I also got to speak with CEO/Chairman David Nelms for about five minutes before the meeting began. He seemed to be somewhat informed about our discussions, and he listened well to what I said, and himself said all the right things about what Discover is doing to strengthen consumers and the company. We’ll see, I guess.

I read our statement during the Q & A session near the end of the meeting. I could tell the people in attendance were very interested, including the board of directors and the many employees in the audience. Our statement seemed to clearly be the most interesting part of a rather ordinary meeting. Mr. Nelms responded in general to the statement, briefly and cordially. I made sure to state that we look forward to further dialogue.

Here is the statement I read:

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Investor Coalition Challenges Sustainability of Predatory Credit Card Practices at Bank of America, Citigroup and JP Morgan Chase

Wednesday, April 8th, 2009