Capital One Financial Corp. / COF

About Capital One Financial Corp.

1680 Capital One Dr., McLean, Va. 22102
www.capitalone.com | 703-720-1000 | Founded: 1995

Industry: Financial Services | Category: Top 100 Companies

The "What's in your wallet?" company has been the subject of takeover speculation in the past year. Some analysts think a sale of the company is inevitable as growth in the credit card business slows and rivals, particularly banks, use their financial power to drive rates down.
The company's credit card and other consumer lending businesses were hurt by a rush of personal bankruptcy filings before mid-October, when federal legislation took effect that made it more difficult to use the bankruptcy process to erase personal debt. As a result, Capital One wrote off $451 million of loans in the fourth quarter, compared with $345 million in the fourth quarter of 2004.
As growth in loans flattened, Capital One has been trying to diversify its businesses into other forms of consumer banking, such as auto loans. At the end of 2005, 53 percent of the total portfolio of outstanding loans for the company came from businesses other than credit cards — up from 39 percent a year ago. Capital One's year-end purchase of Hibernia Corp., a bank based in the New Orleans area, added $31 million in profit in the fourth quarter.
In March of this year, Capital One announced an agreement to buy New York's North Fork Bancorporation Inc. for $14.6 billion. With the deal, which was expected to close by the end of this year, Capital One, which began life in the 1990s as a small spinoff credit card division of a mid-size Richmond bank, would be among the 10 largest financial institutions in the United States, with about $84 billion in deposits, said Richard Woods, a Capital One senior vice president.

Chairman and CEO: Richard D. Fairbank

Chairman and CEO: Richard D. Fairbank

2007 Financial Data

Total employees: 21,000 | Local employees: 845