Hence the flutter of speculation about Mr Karmazin's future, not least by investors keen to eliminate the share-price discount that the uncertainty periodically creates.
American Express earns revenues from card licensing fees, royalties on billings, charge volume, net spread revenue and cards in force, foreign exchange conversion revenue and also a share of the discount revenue earned by the operator.
Also making debuts are the Tada brothers, who share a stake in discount drug chain Sundrug, and Hirokazu Sugiura, founder of Sugi Pharmacy.
"My first priorities are to regain the respect of our shareholders by eliminating the discount in our share price and to find the very best leader to be our future chief executive, " he added.
The campaign, the company's first purely image-based ad push in several years, features national television spots and a website in which customers, store employees and truckers share their warm feelings for the discount retailer.
Now, if you give a family member a minority share in your business, an appraiser legally can discount its value.
But with 70% of the tablet market, does the Mini offer enough of a discount to help protect against erosion of share from the low end?
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Leading discount carrier Southwest Airlines made 40 cents a share for the quarter, blowing past the 26 cents Wall Street had estimated.
Ebay calls this a success so far, as the share of PowerSellers who qualify for the higher 15% discount is at 30% now, double what Ebay expected when it started the program in January.
Because foreclosures and other distressed properties sell at a discount, prices tend to look worse as the share of foreclosed-property sales rise and they look better as the share drops.
Rapidly expanding Lion Air is Indonesia's top discount carrier, holding about a 45 percent market share in the country, a sprawling archipelago of 240 million people that's seeing a boom in both economic growth and air travel.
Nygren likes to buy stocks at a significant discount to their intrinsic values and is a big fan of share repurchases as opposed to stocks with above-average yields, as those currently tend to be fully priced.
The company also increased its U.S. market share for the third consecutive quarter, which has been driven by its digital discount and fuel loyalty programs.
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The outcome was that Argentaria's share of the new group, just under 30%, was determined at a slight discount to the level at which shares closed on October 18th.
The discount retailer is expected to match last year's profits of 86 cents a share.
The conglomerates' revenues and share prices should hold up better than those of other mining firms, allowing them to buy struggling firms at a discount provided, of course, that they can keep their hunger at bay until then.
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