Even though he left on a low, John Stumpf, former CEO of Wells Fargo, will take about $133.1 million into retirement.
The beleaguered executive retired Wednesday afternoon as investors, lawmakers, and consumers grew increasingly frustrated with how Stumpf handled the fallout of the bank’s phony account scandal. He first denied that the bank’s culture had led to the 2 million credit card and deposit accounts opened without permission. Instead, he blamed some 5,300 bad employees who had been fired. Before Congress in late September, he denied that the scandal was as grave as they saw it—fanning their ire, leading the bank to clawback a portion of his pay. The bank said that Stumpf would not get a severance package.
But despite that, and giving up $41 million, Stumpf is still walking away with a pay package that goes into the nine figures, according to executive compensation research firm, Equilar, showing how large CEO pay packages are, even after executives are punished for significant mistakes.
The majority of Stumpf’s payday comes from some 2.4 million shares in the company that Stumpf earned over his years working at the company. That stake is worth $109.9 million based on Wednesday’s closing price.
Stumpf also has some $4.4 million from deferred compensation, and another $19.9 million in his pension account.
The pay calculation does not include the office space, personal driver and administrative assistant Stumpf would be eligible for if he stays on as a consultant to Wells Fargo for the next two years. Those benefits are worth about $200,000, according to the firm’s proxy filing.
What’s more, while the bank has said that it will claw back $41 million in unvested options from Stumpf, it’s not clear where that is coming from. The most recent filings from the company only accounts for about $24 million of the $41 million in unvested shares Wells Fargo says it has clawed back. That suggests that the bank awarded another 39,920 or so shares between February and September that would have vested some time after September 27—the date the claw back was announced.
Stumpf has been CEO of Wells Fargo, once the largest U.S. bank by market cap, since 2007. and he has been with the company since 1998, when Norwest merged with Wells Fargo.
Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass), a noted Wall Street critic and one of Stumpf’s harshest detractors throughout the scandal, has still been calling for Stumpf to give back more of his pay, and undergo investigation by the Department of Justice and Securities and Exchange Commission.
The focus on Wells Fargo’s executive team is also unlikely to abate with Stumpf’s departure. His successor, Tim Sloan, and former Chief Operating Officer, has been an executive throughout the time Wells Fargo was creating phony accounts. The SEC investigation says it began in 2013, though some employees say it began as far back as 2005. As recently as July, Sloan said that he didn’t think the company’s cross selling strategy was fundamentally flawed.
Wells Fargo declined to comment.
Shares of Wells Fargo (WFC) are down 1.67% today.
