BILLIONS DESTROYED

This past week Fifth Third Bancorp's stock (ticker symbol: FITB) hit a new low of $35.05 per share.  Fifth Third's long unrelenting slide began in April 2002, after month after we had turned over to the U.S. Justice Department evidence of federal offenses committed in the course of Fifth Third's acquisition of Old Kent Bank.  From its peak at that time of almost seventy bucks a share, shareholder value has been sliced in half.  (No wonder Fifth Third hates us.)  That represents the destruction of $19.6 billion of value, and the big bank from Cincinnati still isn't a bargain as it struggles to churn out profits.  Trust me, folks, the recent ouster of Fifth Third's CFO as the fall guy for this disaster won't turn anything around.  CEO George Schaeffer has operated the bank on the go-go principles (or should I say "lack of principles") of the '90s.  But it's tough for any public corporation, let alone a bank, to play that game anymore, and looks like running Fifth Third the honest way isn't easy.