FleetBoston Financial Corp., created by the 1999 merger of Fleet Financial Group and BankBoston Corporation, is the nation's eighth-largest diversified financial services company, with more than $185 billion in assets. Headquartered in Boston, FleetBoston Financial Corp., our new company, has the largest retail banking franchise in the Northeast, with more than 5,750 retail outlets serving eight million households and nearly a half-million small businesses from Maine to Pennsylvania. In addition, 500,000 of our customers bank with us via the Internet.

Our combined strengths and capital resources enable us to deliver sophisticated financial products and services to individuals and institutions across the United States and throughout Latin America. We are the nation's third-largest commercial and industrial lender, a leading middle market lender, one of the top five providers of cash management services, and the number one bank-owned commercial finance provider. Through our investment-banking firm, BancBoston Robertson Stephens, we offer a full range of investment banking and capital markets services to all of our corporate clients worldwide.

Our new company, FleetBoston Financial Corp., also provides a wide array of investment management services for individuals and institutional clients, and with one of the nation's leading private banking services, we offer personal financial services tailored specifically to meet the needs of high-net-worth clients. FleetBoston Financial Corp. operates one of the nation's largest discount brokerage firm's through our Quick & Reilly, Inc. subsidiary.