So confident is the bank about its future that it plans to return capital to shareholders next year.

This group returned a median of just 13.5 percent to shareholders in 1997.

"The best use of the money was to return it to shareholders."

He moved acquisitions off his agenda and returned some money to shareholders.

"This is a way for management to return money to shareholders."

"But now our first priority has to be returning cash to shareholders."

The question being raised now is why the company cannot do that as a public entity, and return the proceeds to shareholders.

General Dynamics had been saying since last fall that it planned to find a way to return a large amount of cash to shareholders.

BP said it planned to return the proceeds to shareholders.

"They now amount to a major way that cash is being returned to shareholders," he said.