National City and MAF Bancorp Announce Definitive Agreement for National City to Acquire MAF Bancorp - Final.

Original Source: FD (FAIR DISCLOSURE) WIRE

OPERATOR: Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by and welcome to the National City Corporation investor conference call. That this time all lines are in a listen-only mode; later there will be a question-and-answer session and instructions will be given at that time. (OPERATOR INSTRUCTIONS). As a reminder, today's call is being recorded. At this time I'd like to turn the conference over to the Senior Vice President and Treasurer of National City Corp., Mr. Tom Richlovsky. Please go ahead, sir.

TOM RICHLOVSKY, TREASURER, NATIONAL CITY CORP.: Thank you and good morning, everyone. We appreciate the opportunity to talk with you this morning regarding National City's acquisition of MAF Bancorp. Copies of the news release and the presentation slides are accessible on our website NationalCity.com.

Before we get started I must advise you that those materials, as well as the management commentary that you're about to hear, contain forward-looking statements which we believe to be reasonable. However, such statements are subject to various risks such that actual results in the future could vary significantly from our current expectations. These risks are further described in the presentation documents as well as in our Form 10-K and subsequent SEC filings.

While we may elect to update forward-looking statements at some future point, we specifically disclaim any obligation to do so. You're also urged to read the proxy statement and prospectus when it becomes available.

Peter Raskind, President of National City, and Jeff Kelly, Vice Chairman and Chief Financial Officer, will co-host the call this morning. They'll discuss the transaction and walk through the presentation slides. We also have on hand with us this morning Dave Daberko, Chairman and CEO of National City; Allen Koranda, Chairman and CEO of MAF Bancorp; Ken Koranda, President of MAF Bancorp; as well as Joe Gregoire, who's the President of our National City's Illinois market; and Clark Khayat, Executive in charge of our corporate development efforts at National City. They will be on hand as well as needed during the question-and-answer period which will take place after Jeff and Peter's remarks.

With that I'll turn things over to Peter Raskind who is on-site at MAF headquarters outside of Chicago. Peter?

PETER RASKIND, PRESIDENT, NATIONAL CITY CORP.: Thanks, Tom, and good morning, everyone. We're very pleased to have the opportunity this morning to talk about National City's proposed acquisition of MAF Bancorp and to take your questions. MAF Bancorp is the holding company for Mid America Bank. MAF has a $7.7 billion loan portfolio and $7 billion of deposits. Given its heritage as a thrift, the business mix has been oriented to retail banking and real estate activities. It's based in suburban Chicago and has a total of 58 branches in the Chicagoland market and another 24 in Wisconsin, in and around Milwaukee.

The map really says it all for us. This acquisition significantly enhances our distribution system in Chicago, the largest market in which we compete and one that offers very high potential for growth. Most important, the location and condition of the branch network is highly complementary and compatible with our existing Chicago network which we have been trying to expand for several years, as you know. It would literally be impossible to replicate this network on a de novo basis. Also of great interest to us is the entree it provides into Milwaukee, a new but very logical and appropriate market for us.

While this transaction is fairly small relative to National City as a whole, it is very strategic and transformational for us in Chicago. It takes us from number 13, pretty far down the pack, to a solid number four in deposit share in a huge market. Our game in Chicago all along has been one of taking share and with a pro forma of 4% of the market we clearly still have lots of room to grow. Last week's BofA LaSalle announcement does not change our pro forma ranking, but it does highlight the importance of scale. This deal certainly puts us over the threshold in terms of scale in Chicago.

Jeff will talk about the financials in a moment, but one of the reasons we have confidence in our financial projections is that they are drawn from our actual experience in this market. Chicago has played a major role in our ability to grow households at a …