James Cayne Quotations

We achieved solid results this quarter, despite more volatile market conditions and declining trading volumes, predominantly in the fixed-income markets. Furthermore, weakness in the Nasdaq, particularly technology shares, led to a decline in equity new issue activity.

Given the challenging operating environment this effort has served us particularly well,

Our equity underwriting activities were at record levels as robust equity markets contributed to an abundant deal flow.

Operating profits were up, despite a decline in net revenues, largely due to the fact that expense reductions from our margin improvement program have now been realized and incorporated into our earnings,

Despite the Asian economic crisis, we continued to find opportunities in the Far East, ... We attribute the record results for the quarter and the fiscal year to strength in all of the firm's core businesses.

The world is changing, and we recognize that a synergistic combination might be in the best interest of shareholders,

The market conditions of the third quarter were difficult and those difficulties have intensified early in the fourth quarter, ... In the face of these challenging times, we would like investors to know that our focus remains on ensuring that our clients receive the high quality service they are accustomed to, running our business as efficiently as possible and further tightening our controls on expenses.

The fixed-income franchise continued to show extremely strong results at a time when most other major sectors in the industry were experiencing persistent weakness, ... The steps taken during fiscal 2001 to reduce operating costs and increase margins have had a positive effect on the current period's earnings.