Warren Buffett, who controls the largest stake in Wells Fargo & Co., said the bank mishandled the fake-account scandal by failing to act promptly to fix abuses that tarnished the lender's reputation and made it harder to attract customers.
"They were totally wrong on that," Buffett said Saturday in Omaha, Nebraska, at the annual meeting of his Berkshire Hathaway Inc. "The main problem was they didn't act when they learned about it."
Wells Fargo shares are little changed from their 2014 closing price, while rivals Bank of America Corp. and JPMorgan Chase & Co. have each advanced more than 30 percent in that span. The scandal has spurred millions of dollars in fines and legal costs and dented Wells Fargo's standing as one of the country's best run banks. In October, Chief Executive Officer John Stumpf resigned after being hauled in front of Congress to testify on why the lender opened accounts without customers' permission.
To repair the damage, the company bolstered internal controls, abandoned sales and bonus targets that were linked to the abuses, and promoted Tim Sloan to be CEO. The bank also eliminated or clawed back about $180 million in pay, much of it from Stumpf and former community bank head Carrie Tolstedt.
Buffett said Saturday that flawed compensation systems — such as the arrangement that rewarded Wells Fargo employees for meeting aggressive sales goals — are a periodic problem for companies, and can promote the wrong behavior.
'Bad Enough'
"It was bad enough having a bad system," Buffett said, building on his prior remarks about the bank. "But they didn't act."
