The deal, which was announced on March 6, is valued at $5.3 billion. Under the terms of the agreement, Hibernia's shareholders can elect to receive cash or Capital One common stock. While Wood did not have details of how the election would work, she says that shareholders would be paid "about $33 for each share, of which 45 percent will be cash, and 55 percent will be Capital One stock."
According to Wood, the buyout will not affect jobs in Lafayette or in Hibernia's management. Once the deal is done, Hibernia's New Orleans president and CEO, J. Herbert Boydstun, will become president of Capital One's banking division. "It's status quo for us, with the exception of the name change to Capital One," Wood explains.
She doesn't anticipate any major changes, but she does expect customers to benefit from Capital One's clout. This might even include lower rates for loans and higher interest on deposits. "Capital One has been some of the most creative consumer financers that we've seen in a long time," she says. "So, I think what's going to happen is it's going to be a very competitive market because it is a competitive organization, and that's going to be good for our customers."
Now that the news has settled in, Wood says that Hibernia's employees are excited about the transaction. "I cannot tell you how delighted we are, because the Capital One philosophy and support in the communities absolutely mirror Hibernia's," she says. "So, for us, it just is an endorsement of what we've been doing for so long, and that's what made us attractive for them."
MAY 24 Blogger Robert Mann posts this entry about the Baton Rouge Chamber's recent report on Louisiana's higher education system. It's critical to economic development, and yet our system is facing a "funding crisis" with no way to resolve it, the report says. The Chamber says control of tuition and fees must be returned to the higher ed governing boards.
MAY 24 Here's a NBC33 story about Tyrann Mathieu. He has signed with the Arizona Cardinals, inking a $3 million, four-year deal. He gets a signing bonus of $265K, but gets another, larger bonus if he doesn't get cut from the team for doing drugs. The deal reportedly includes mandatory tests and meetings for the player.
MAY 24 Jarvis DeBerry posts here about the redonkulus rhetoric that would have us believe NOLA is a safe city with a murder problem. Maybe the city's crime stats don't compare with its murder stats because you can't manipulate a murder, he says: a dead body's a dead body. It just doesn't make sense, he says, and his readers agree: a poll asks if they believe the city is safe, and more than 90 percent say no.
MAY 24 Jindal administration officials announced Thursday that the privatization of public health care is going to cost a lot more than they budgeted for, the Advocate reports here. "I'm so surprised," said no one. Anywhere. The cost they're projecting now is more than $1 billion - a lot more than the $626 million budgeted for it. And, it's more than it cost the state to operate those hospitals. So why are we doing this again?
MAY 24 Blogger CB Forgotston ridicules the recent PR campaign by the state GOP in the wake of a legislative auditor's request to both major parties. The GOP (apparently unaware that the Dems got the same request) started yammering about being targeted because it had "killed" a tax increase. CB finds that laughable, but it's also pretty funny that the GOP was comparing this episode to the IRS scandal (Because the President has so much to do with our state auditor. Right?).
MAY 24 Politico details some recent fund-raising efforts by Sen. David Vitter, which have raised the question of his future political plans. This time, it is a $5,000 per head "bayou weekend" that includes "Cajun cooking" and an all-caps "alligator hunt," the story reports. Funds raised go to a super PAC that can spend money to support Vitter in federal or state races, the story points out.
MAY 24 The pink building on Royal in the quarter was sold at a sheriff's sale Thursday, this Picayune story reports. An injunction that would have halted the sale wasn't enforced because the family failed to post a $150,000 bond, the story reports. So the owner of the mortgages on the building bought it, for nearly $7 million. Now the feuding family will have to negotiate with that company to get a lease on the building that has housed their business for close to 60 years.
MAY 23 This post in Louisiana Voice tells us about a bill by a Winnsboro lege that would require all public high school students to take at least one Course Choice online class in order to graduate. (What?) Blogger Tom Aswell says it's a monument to "waste and corruption," especially in light of the problems he's exposed with the program in recent weeks. Idaho had a similar program, but voters removed it by a 2-1 margin, Aswell says.
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