And What a Fight it Was!

As Mellon CEO Robert Kelly tells the story, he did his best to convince the good people at Bank of New York -- the people who were negotiating to purchase his company -- to use Pittsburgh as the headquarters of their combined new company. I'm sure that it was a real knock-down-drag out fight by Mr. Kelly, but he came up short in the end.

What a load of complete bullshit! There was no fight, no argument, no disagreement, and probably no discussion of any kind regarding using Pittsburgh as the corporate headquarters. The new company is going to called "Bank Of New York Mellon Corporation", which would be one hell of a strange name for any Pittsburgh-based company. If there was any discussion of Pittsburgh whatsoever during the negotiations, I imagine it took place at the urinals during a break in the discussions. The exact transcript was probably something like this:

Mr. Kelly: (moaning with relief) Ahhhhhhhhhhhh! Man, I guess I drank too much coffee on that flight from Pittsburgh this morning!

BoNY CEO Thomas A. Renyi: Well, at least you won't have to make that flight much more.

Mr. Kelly: (chuckles) Nope, and I can't say that I'll miss it. Hey, speaking of Pittsburgh, I'll bet this deal is really going to hurt them once all the dust settles.

Mr. Renyi: (distracted) Huh? Say, did you ever wonder what they make these urinal cakes out of? I mean, why are they even in there?

The biggest winner in this entire deal, of course, is Mr. Kelly himself. After being passed over for CEO when he was the CFO of Wachovia, he landed in Pittsburgh as CEO of Mellon. Now he will be on his way to New York -- escaping the provinces of both Charlotte and Pittsburgh -- to be CEO of an financial behemoth that far exceeds the size of his old employer. Indeed, he will be about as close to the pinnacle of the financial industry as anyone could ever dream of. Given everything that this deal gives him, does anyone really believe that he fought all that hard for Pittsburgh, a city where he as lived for less than a year?

I can't fault you for being self-interested, Mr. Kelly. But please, if you are going to lie to us, at least try to be a little bit less obvious about it.