From the Editor.

• Position: Editorial

It's your basic nightmare: You shake hands with a rival in a friendly merger and start examining the actual logistics. Then a hostile bidder steps forward and tries to sabotage the deal.

This happened to two major North Carolina banks, Wachovia Corp. and First Union Corp., last year when SunTrust Banks -- a rebuffed former suitor of Wachovia -- announced a bid of its own, and at a higher premium. In the months that followed, First Union and Wachovia orchestrated a multi-part strategy that negated the premium issue and persuaded shareholders to choose their combination. Writer Karen Kahler Holliday talked to the principals in this high-stakes investor relations effort and offers an inside look at how they went about selling their deal.

Leadership guru Warren Bennis, who spoke at last fall's FEI Virtual Chapter meeting, offers more of his thoughts on what makes great leaders. In an interview with Managing Editor Ellen Heffes, Bennis argues that great leaders aren't born, and that one of their chief attributes is training others to lead. He also insists that the next generation of top leaders will be good at dealing with, of all things, ambiguity.

Also in this issue are a pair of articles about credit availability. Writer Jack Milligan interviewed a number of senior bankers and finance executives about the current environment for obtaining credit, which, not surprisingly, has lenders in the drivers' seat. A related article from the FEI Research Foundation, which details research on credit availability, reaches some of the same conclusions.

The graying of the Baby Boomer generation and the workforce in general isn't news, but writer Steven Van Yoder explores what this means to companies facing a potential worker...