Wells Fargo Boosts CEO Tim Sloan's Pay 36% to $17.4 Million
Wells Fargo Boosts CEO Sloan's Pay 36% to $17.4 Million for 2017
(Bloomberg) -- Wells Fargo & Co. paid Chief Executive Officer Tim Sloan $17.4 million for 2017, a 36 percent increase from a year earlier, as the bank struggled to free itself from a string of scandals.
Sloan, 57, received $2.4 million in salary and $15 million of restricted stock, some of which is linked to return on equity compared with other financial firms, the San Francisco-based bank said Wednesday in a proxy filing. He asked the board not to award him a bonus, according to the filing.
Wells Fargo has been excoriated for bad behavior, including employees creating legions of fake accounts and allegedly making inappropriate recommendations to customers seeking alternative investments. Regulators also are probing whether the bank overcharged consumers for home and auto loans as well as clients with fiduciary and custody accounts, the company has said. Last month, the Federal Reserve blocked the firm from growing its assets until it cleans up its messes.
Sloan received a $12.8 million pay package for 2016, when he took over as CEO from John Stumpf, who retired after being grilled in Congress about the bogus-accounts scandal. Senior executives didn’t receive bonuses that year in light of their “collective accountability for the overall operational and reputational risk” of the bank, according to its 2017 proxy. Chief Financial Officer John Shrewsberry and other senior managers, other than Sloan, did get bonuses for last year.
This year’s filing includes a shareholder proposal from the New York State Common Retirement Fund, which asks Wells Fargo to produce a report on whether certain employees receive incentive compensation that could encourage excessive risk-taking. The board is urging investors to reject the measure.
Shares of the lender returned 13 percent last year, including reinvested dividends, trailing the 19 percent return for the 24-company KBW Bank Index.
--With assistance from Jenn Zhao and Alicia Ritcey
To contact the reporters on this story: Anders Melin in New York at amelin3@bloomberg.net, Shahien Nasiripour in New York at snasiripour1@bloomberg.net.
To contact the editors responsible for this story: Pierre Paulden at ppaulden@bloomberg.net, Peter Eichenbaum, Steven Crabill
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