WILMINGTON, Del. - MBNA Corp.'s board appointed director Randolph Lerner as chairman and Charlie Cawley, the second-biggest credit-card issuer's president, as chief executive officer yesterday.
The two men succeed Al Lerner, Randolph's father, who died of brain cancer at age 69 last month. He also owned the Cleveland Browns professional football team.
Randolph Lerner, 40, has been on the board since 1993 and is a partner at the investment management firm Securities Advisors L.P., the successor of R.D. Lerner Securities Inc., which he has managed since September 1991, according to a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.
Cawley, 62, has run MBNA's day-to-day operations since it was established as a subsidiary of MNC Financial in 1982. The business has grown through partnerships with thousands of colleges, sports organizations and groups such as NASCAR and the Nature Conservancy, and is second in size only to Citigroup Inc.'s card operations.
"Management's done a great job," said Franklin Morton, who helps manage $10 billion, including 8 million shares of MBNA, at Ariel Capital Management Inc. in Chicago. "Al Lerner played the role of a nonexecutive chairman. I would assume the son would play the same role."
The younger Lerner has a law degree from Columbia University. He is chairman of the board of trustees of the New York Academy of Art and a trustee of the Hospital for Special Surgery in New York City, MBNA said.
The Lerner family owns more than 160 million MBNA shares, more than 12 percent of the outstanding shares, said company spokesman Jim Donahue. The board also appointed Al Lerner's widow, Norma Lerner, as an MBNA director.
The company said it set up an executive committee comprising Cawley; Randolph Lerner; Bruce Hammonds, chairman and CEO of the company's primary banking unit; and John Cochran, president of the banking unit.
Cawley promoted Hammonds and Cochran this year, saying he was "setting up succession." He has not disclosed plans to retire.
"They will continue to run like they have," said Robert Millen, a principal at Portland, Ore.-based Jensen Investment Management. "We would see that as a positive."
MBNA's shares fell 58 cents to $21.20 yesterday on the New York Stock Exchange. The stock is down 9.7 percent this year.