4/15/2008: CEO of M&T calls for rethink of mark-to-market accounting

Excerpt from Remarks to Annual Meeting of Shareholders, April 15, 2008
By Robert Wilmers, CEO of M&T Bank

In normal times, I might focus mainly this morning on several specific factors which have had the most pronounced effects on our net income. But these are not normal times for the banking industry.

No discussion of any individual bank’s results today can take place without reflecting more broadly—much more broadly—on the extraordinary time in which we find ourselves, a time in which there is a crisis of confidence in the financial services industry.

It is a crisis which has already prompted unprecedented forms of government intervention, but which calls for more—much more—action to ensure the long-term stability of our capital markets.
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What, then, to do? There is no quick fix. However, among the approaches that must be considered are these.
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Re-examination of the appropriateness of mark-to-market accounting for balance sheet purposes, in periods of illiquid markets. The ability to reasonably determine the fair value of certain assets in times like these is, at best, severely limited—for those that previously made markets in such assets, for all practical purposes, have gone fishing.