A Generous Gesture coupled with Humility

Leonard Abess Jr.
A Miami banker who quietly shared US$60 million out of his own pocket with 399 of his current staff and even 72 former workers after selling his bank to a Spanish bank, with each receiving an average of about US$127,000. He was singled out for praise by President Barack Obama in his congressional address Tuesday. Abess and his wife attended as Obama's guest.

"I think everybody was surprised. But knowing Leonard,
the type of person he is, I can believe him giving it away,"
said retiree William Perry, who spent 43 years at City
National Bank of Florida, rising from janitor to vice
president. Perry, 78, got $50,000, which he is using to
help his son pay for law school.

"It was like a lottery, only better," Virginia C. Dunn,
managing senior vice president, said of the gift.
"Because it came from someone's heart."

Abess' father founded the bank in 1946 and he began his career in the print shop, working his way up the corporate ladder. His family sold the bank in the early 1980s to an investment group, which in turn sold it to a Colombian coffee magnate. When the magnate was convicted of fraud, Abess bought a majority stake out of bankruptcy in 1985 for $21 million, all of it borrowed, and then acquired the rest for $6 million. The bank, under his ownership, grew from $400 million in assets and seven offices to $2.75 billion in assets and 18 offices.

Sharing the wealth with staffers came naturally. Abess and his wife, Jayne, have long been big contributors to local organizations, such as the Greater Miami Jewish Federation and Mount Sinai Medical Center. In 2006, the Abesses gave $5 million to the University of Miami to promote environmental studies.

Abess never wanted to make a big deal out of his largesse; he didn't even show up at the bank when the envelopes were distributed in November. It wasn't until he mentioned the bonuses in a recent interview with The Miami Herald that they became publicly known. Asked later what motivated him, Abess said he had long dreamed of a way to reward employees. He had been thinking of creating an employee stock option plan before he decided to sell the bank.

"Those people who joined me and stayed with me
at the bank with no promise of equity - I always
thought some day I'm going to surprise them,"
he said. "I sure as heck don't need [the money]."

"I knew some of these people since I was 7 years old.
I didn't feel right getting the money myself," said
Abess, who was concerned that their 401(k) plans had
taken a beating in the downdraft on Wall Street last year.

sources:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/29396039/
http://www.miamiherald.com/news/miami-dade/story/904842.html