Our overall market share performance in our securities businesses was the strongest ever. Our full-year results in a number of the key categories include:
- #1 in Global Equity Trading
- #2 in announced Global Mergers & Acquisitions
- #3 in Global Equity Underwriting
- #4 in Global Debt Underwriting, ahead of all peer securities competitors
- Flat revenue market share among retail securities companies even while reducing the number of our financial advisors by 1,500 from 12,500 to 11,000
- Our internal measures of share with our largest fixed income clients indicate positive share gains as our increased breadth of product strengthens our value to clients, especially in credit products.
Each of the above rankings represents an improvement over last year, or at worst, equal performance to last year. What is impressive is the breadth of improved client acceptance of the value of our people, products and services. I believe all of this traces back to the strategy of client focus, which, while always strong, has now become engraved in our culture throughout the firm.
In most businesses — and particularly in Mergers & Acquisitions — our performance in the second half of the year was far better than the first half. We believe our momentum with clients is building as we demonstrate to them every day that their interests come first. As the capital markets strengthen in 2004, we expect to continue strong market share performance and leadership in all securities businesses.
In Investment Management, we had disappointing market share results in 2003. Our overall share of assets under management declined from 3.0% to 2.7% as a result of:
- Net outflows of institutional fixed income assets as clients shifted to equities at a time our investment performance was uncharacteristically underperforming against our benchmarks.
- Weak inflows in retail from our own branch network as a result of particularly strong sales of other asset management companies' products and pressure on the sale of affiliated products.
We expect markedly better net flows in 2004. Our institutional fixed income comparisons to benchmarks have improved, and our Van Kampen brand mutual funds are now enjoying strong inflows related to several key equity funds' outstanding performance.
Discover Card market share declined because we have focused more on improved credit quality than on growth. Tightening credit approvals and limits naturally reduces growth in new accounts and receivables. We hope to begin more aggressive growth later this year if the economy continues to improve.
