I make no bones about being from the First State. That’s Delaware for the historically challenged. So I’m scanning Sunday’s New York Times and I come across the business front and the centerpiece is about MBNA.
If you take a look at most of your credit card bills, you’ll most likely see they come from Wilmington, Delaware. And it’s likely the company that issues them is MBNA.
Here’s a little tidbit about MBNA: it owns 85 percent of the affinity program market. Went to UNC-Chapel Hill and got one of their affinity cards? MBNA. A member of the American Trial Lawyers Association or the Manchester United Soccer team? Somebody’s swipin’ your MBNA card when you make a purchase.
Want another? MBNA made a profit of $2.34 billion last year.
And another? It’s stock price has risen, on average, 28 percent a year since 1991, the year it went public.
The Times story was about the fall of the House of MBNA, at least for its co-founder and CEO Charles Cawley. Cawley’s board wised up after the messes at Enron and WorldCom – among others – had hit the fan. Even those Cawley handpicked to lead the company began to get a little squeamish at these little ditties:
- A fleet of airplanes, helicopters, yachts and expensive cars as well as a $65 million art collection
- Cawley used $3.5 million of the company’s money to buy an Andrew Wyeth original
- Cawley spent more than $1 million on a gathering for a management conference that has included: former President Bush, George Tenent, former CIA director (Hmm, I see a pattern) and Alma Powell, yes the wife of Colin Powell.
Cawley was little eccentric about his security, too. Either that or he had a J. Edgar Hoover fetish. Here’s a portion of former FBI honchos he’s hired over the years:
- Former director Louis J. Freeh
- John Collingwoord, a former lobbyist for the bureau
- Jules Bonavolonta, a former chief of the narcotics and organized crime division of the bureau
- Lewis Schiliro, a former assistant director for the bureau who also ran the New York office
- James Kallstrom, who preceded Schiliro at the bureau
- William Esposito, a former bureau deputy director
The article was fascinating for me because of what MBNA has done for Delaware. Growing up, the big companies in the area were duPont and Hercules, both now shadows of their former selves. Their problems left Wilmington desolate. MBNA was a shot in the arm and has revitalized Wilmington and Newark.
Most of the people I grew up with now work for MBNA. It’s close to being the Stepford company, sort of like SAS in Raleigh. They want you from the cradle to the grave.
For example, a longtime friend told me that if you want to get married, the company offers you free use of any limo in their garage. There’s onsite day care, a cleaners, a car cleaning service, etc. The catch? If you want to play with the big dogs, you gotta work like a big dog. They expect your undivided attention on your job for 12-14 hours a day. Do it and you get the bone. Don’t do it? You get smacked on the nose with a newspaper and left to toil away in the mailroom for-ev-er.
Don’t get me wrong, the company has turned around the fortunes of Wilmington by building and rehabing in poor areas of the city and giving generously to charity.
But shouldn’t a man with an estimated net worth of $4.2 billion be a little more careful with money that doesn’t belong to him? Had the company not gone public, yeah, he could stand to fly some friends to Spain for $35,000 on his company’s jet.
What ARE these folks thinking?