FleetBoston earnings up 6.6 percent

BOSTON (Bloomberg) — FleetBoston Financial Corp.’s fourth-quarter profit rose 6.6 percent after the seventh-largest U.S. bank paid its employees less, reflecting lower fee revenue from slumping equity markets. Net income rose to $774 million, or 84 cents a share, from profit before merger-related charges of $726 million, or 76 cents, in the same quarter in 1999. Revenue fell 7.4 percent to $3.37 billion. FleetBoston, which owns discount broker Quick & Reilly and investment banker Robertston Stephens Inc., blamed “tough capital markets” for damping revenue growth, Chief Executive Terrence Murray said in a statement. The bank, New England’s biggest, hit its cost savings targets arising from the merger between Boston- based rivals BankBoston Corp. and Fleet Financial Group Inc. in 1999. The bank shaved expenses by 16 percent. It cut payroll and benefit costs by 25 percent, to $899 million, in part by paring bonuses and commissions as its capital-markets revenue sank 24 percent. Capital-markets revenue includes venture capital gains, merger advisory fees, fees from taking companies public, trading and market-making activities.