Wells Fargo Formally Separates Chairman, CEO Roles
December 01 2016 - 4:20PM
Dow Jones News
Wells Fargo & Co. has amended its bylaws to formally
separate the roles of chairman and chief executive and will require
its chairman to be independent as it tries to rebuild customers'
trust following a scandal over banking sales practices.
When former chairman and CEO John Stumpf resigned in October,
lead independent director Stephen Sanger replaced him as chairman,
and president and operating chief Timothy Sloan became CEO.
But four institutional shareholders called on the bank to take
further formal steps to improve its governance.
Mr. Sanger said in a statement that the bylaw change would help
improve the board's oversight of management and that investigations
of the bank's retail sales practices continue.
Wells Fargo came under intense scrutiny this fall over
revelations that bank employees had opened as many as two million
accounts without customers' knowledge. Mr. Stumpf stepped down
after coming under fire for his handling of the fallout.
The move to separate the roles also comes after U.S. Comptroller
of the Currency Thomas Curry said this week that regulators should
consider requiring federally chartered banks to do so. He said the
change would eliminate potential conflicts of interest that can
exist when the same individual serves in both roles.
In separating the positions, Wells Fargo joins Citigroup Inc. as
the only other large U.S. bank to keep the roles separate, a change
it made in the financial crisis. Bank of America Corp. split the
roles under shareholder pressure during the crisis, but the board
gave the chairman job to Chief Executive Brian Moynihan in
2014.
Write to Maria Armental at maria.armental@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
December 01, 2016 16:05 ET (21:05 GMT)
Copyright (c) 2016 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
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