"They're just saying, there are limits to what we can put through given the corporate focus on expense control."

In a perfect world there is no expense control (everyone is that honest).

"We are making definite progress toward our objective of achieving business growth in tandem with expense control."

"It pleased me; you keep reading about all the expense controls and you like to see it in the results."

Contributing to the decline were tight expense controls and the benefits of scale from strong sales growth, the company said.

The companies cited strong loan growth, tight expense controls and acquisitions.

The company also agreed to improve its capital positions and to use more stringent expense controls.

The company said sales of new products had been strong and expense controls were having an effect.

Better expense control and good profit margins would put the company's earnings right on target, he told investors last week.

First Boston also told employees that they "will be hearing a lot more about expense control."