Wells Fargo could take back much more than $50 million from CEO

U.S. senators castigated Wells Fargo chief executive John Stumpf this past week for not seeking to take back some of the $100 million awarded to a retiring executive who oversaw the division at the heart of the company's fake-accounts scandal.

But whenever Stumpf, 63, leaves his post atop the San Francisco banking giant, he could walk away with far more-nearly $195 million in cash, stock and other compensation, a review of the bank's regulatory filings show.

While it's almost certain that Stumpf will keep the most of that sum given the bank's compensation policy, both he and Carrie Tolstedt, the retiring executive who headed the bank's retail operations, could lose tens of millions of dollars because of the still-unfolding scandal.

The bank has agreed to pay $185 million to federal regulators and the Los Angeles city attorney's office over the creation of as many as 2 million fake accounts, a practice regulators say was encouraged by a demanding and poorly supervised sales culture. Further trouble has surfaced for the bank since the settlement was announced.

Federal prosecutors are investigating the bank to see whether criminal charges should be filed, while senators have called for the Labor Department to investigate possible labor law violations. And there's a growing chorus of investors, corporate governance experts and others calling for Wells Fargo to cut or cancel executives' pay over the scandal.

At a Senate Banking Committee hearing last week, Sen. Bob Corker, R-Tenn., said the bank would be committing "malpractice from the standpoint of just public relations" if it does not dock executives' pay. Analysts who follow the bank expect that means both Stumpf and Tolstedt will lose some compensation.

Stumpf has been Wells Fargo's chief executive since 2007, its chairman since 2010 and has worked for the company or a predecessor for 34 years, amassing sizable retirement benefits and stock aon top of his salary and cash bonuses.

He owns 2.4 million shares of Wells Fargo stock outright, according to recent regulatory filings, worth about $111 million at Friday's closing price of $45.74.

Stumpf also has nearly $20 million in accrued pension benefits and an additional $4.2 million in the company's 401(k) plan. Add in his annual salary of $2.8 million and that amounts to about $138 million in cash and stock that Stumpf will almost certainly keep. But the rest of his compensation is not so secure.

For starters, Stumpf's annual pay package this year includes a cash bonus of about $4 million. The bank's board can decide to pay less than that amount-or nothing at all-depending on Stumpf's performance.

In paying him a bonus of $4 million last year, the board cited several factors, saying Stumpf had among other things reinforced "a culture of risk management and accountability across the company."

With the bank under fire for failing to prevent thousands of employees from opening accounts that customers didn't want, the board could choose to not give that bonus this year. But $4 million is peanuts compared with another chunk of compensation he could lose.

A review of the bank's regulatory filings shows that Stumpf could receive as many as 1.15 million additional shares of stock over the next three years, though the number could be lower depending on the bank's financial performance.

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