Federal regulators expressed ‘no confidence’ in Wells Fargo CEO
At least three of Washington’s most powerful regulators had expressed “no confidence” in Wells Fargo’s CEO, Tim Sloan, in the weeks leading up to his abrupt resignation Thursday, The Post has learned.
There was a “regulatory push” led by the Federal Reserve, Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, and Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. — three of the bank’s principal regulators — to oust Sloan from his perch at the bank in recent weeks, according to a person briefed on the matter.
“There were multiple regulators voicing no confidence,” the person said of the OCC, the Fed and the FDIC.
Bryan Hubbard, a spokesman for the OCC, declined to comment but directed The Post to an open consent order it has with the bank, from April 2018, allowing it to “provide additional guidance” on senior executive officers and board members.
Wells Fargo declined to comment, as did the Fed and FDIC.
Sloan, 58, announced he would be stepping down Thursday after less than three years at the top of the bank, which has been plagued by scandals over its business practices, including employees profiting from fake credit cards and other accounts it opened in customers’ names.
Since taking the reins, Sloan has been unable to stem the tide of controversies that kicked off under his predecessor John Stumpf, resulting in state and federal probes and heat from legislators.
His abrupt resignation appeared to catch the bank with its pants down and no obvious succession plan.
It has appointed its top lawyer as interim CEO and said it will look externally for a new chief, setting off a parlor game on Wall Street over who could replace him.
Among the most talked-about contestants are:
Cathy Bessant, chief operations and technology officer at Bank of America. Bessant, 59, is in charge of the security and privacy of all customer accounts. Her privacy experience would send a strong message at Wells Fargo, which has struggled to recover from its fake-accounts scandal.
Matt Zames, president of Cerberus Capital Management. Zames, 48, was once seen as a contender to replace Jamie Dimon at JPM. He has experience with damage control and is helping Deutsche Bank manage its own crisis.
Ruth Porat, chief financial officer of Alphabet. The CFO of Google’s parent company is an old Wall Street hand who was CFO at Morgan Stanley before she was recruited by Silicon Valley. She is respected on Wall Street and in Washington, as she was once President Obama’s pick to be deputy secretary of the Treasury.
Marianne Lake, chief financial officer, JPMorgan Chase. Lake, 50, has been the top financial executive at the biggest US bank since 2013 and is one of the most visible and trusted women on Wall Street.
The week before Sloan said he would be stepping down, The Post reported that members of Wells Fargo’s board were in talks with Harvey Schwartz, an ex-Goldman Sachs executive, to take over from Sloan.
Wells’ Chairwoman Betsy Duke has denied that the board reached out to anyone ahead of Sloan’s resignation, but sources tell The Post that Schwartz was one of two candidates being vetted by board members for the CEO job ahead of Sloan’s official resignation.