Wells Fargo faces shareholders, protesters at annual meeting
PONTE VEDRA BEACH, Fla. (AP) — Wells Fargo's top management faced a series of protesters and apologized to investors today, but board members kept their jobs – albeit barely in some cases – at the first big shareholder meeting since a scandal over sales practices erupted.
Shareholders clearly were irritated or angry at Wells' management. In a preliminary tally, three out of 15 board members received a bare majority of votes to keep their jobs. That includes Chairman Stephen Sanger, the bank's independent chairman, who received 56 percent of shareholder votes. That's in a world where it's common for a current director at a major corporation to receive north of 90 percent of shareholders' votes.
"Wells Fargo stockholders today have sent the entire board a clear message of dissatisfaction," Sanger said.
Although they voted everyone in, shareholders were clearly unhappy. All the directors who were at Wells Fargo before the scandal broke got 80 percent or less of shareholders' votes. The three who got 99 percent were CEO Tim Sloan – who got his job in October after former CEO John Stumpf departed – and two independent directors who started earlier this year.