By Ben Eisen
Wells Fargo & Co. paid its top executive about $20.3 million last year, a drop of 12% from a year earlier.
The pay cut, disclosed Friday in a regulatory filing, was for a year in which the bank's profitability and stock both declined sharply as the pandemic took a heavy toll on the economy. Wells Fargo came into the crisis weaker than its peers as it recovers from a sales-practice scandal that became public more than four years ago.
Charles Scharf was brought in to help clean up those issues in the fall of 2019. That year, he made annualized compensation of $23 million, according to a regulatory filing. Additionally, when he was hired, the bank said it would pay him about $26 million for forfeited stock in Bank of New York Mellon Corp., which he previously ran.
In 2020, his compensation consisted of $2.5 million base salary, plus a cash incentive compensation of $4.4 million. He also received $13.5 million in long-term incentive compensation.
The bank's board of directors, which greenlighted his package, decided it wouldn't be appropriate to use the performance goals for 2020 in determining his compensation, given the impact of the pandemic.
Mr. Scharf's priorities include cutting billions of dollars from the company's annual expenses and resolving remaining regulatory penalties, which include a cap on its growth.
Mr. Scharf made more than Goldman Sachs Group Inc. Chief Executive David Solomon, whose pay was slashed due to a scandal involving a Malaysian investment fund. He made less than Morgan Stanley's James Gorman, whose pay was hiked 22% to $33 million, making him the highest paid big bank CEO so far. JPMorgan Chase & Co.'s James Dimon made $31.5 million for 2020, even with 2019.
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
01-29-21 1833ET
