BNY Mellon Annual Report: Our Financial and Business Performance

Our company continued to produce reasonable financial performance in 2017. On a reported basis, our revenues increased 2%, expenses increased 4% and EPS increased 18%. The benefit of the new tax legislation in the U.S. and the severance, litigation and other charges in the fourth quarter affected the results significantly. While reviewing financial results, excluding certain items can potentially be self-serving (When someone says that to me, I always hear, “We would have been fine except for the bad things.”), I do think it’s helpful to explain our numbers the way we judge our performance internally. We are going through a period of transition, and I am encouraging our leaders to take actions, both in 2017 and 2018, which will add cost in the short term, but will benefit us in the long term. As such, I do not believe including these costs reflects the full earnings profile of our company. With this knowledge, you must make your own determination, but it is how we think about these items.

– Charles W. Scharf, Chairman and CEO