TIM SLOAN: THE MAN WHO MAY INHERIT CEO STUMPF'S MESS AT WELLS FARGO
- President and COO Tim Sloan is longtime Wells Fargo employee
- Not someone viewed as a ‘transformational CEO,’ analyst says
As the scandal over Wells Fargo & Co.’s bogus consumer accounts was coming to a head this summer, executives concluded they had to act. It was time for a chat with Carrie Tolstedt, the manager who oversaw the retail business.
The man assigned to do the messy task: Tim Sloan, the bank’s 56-year-old president, chief operating officer and trusted No. 2 to Chief Executive Officer John Stumpf. As Stumpf recounted for Congress this week, Sloan told Tolstedt that the bank would “go in a different direction." She was soon replaced.
It was quintessential Sloan, the quiet fixer, the man called in to clean up messes or help cinch giant acquisitions. He’s also long been considered Stumpf’s likely successor, a view that’s only grown as Stumpf, the CEO, has taken a public beating in recent days. Sloan finds himself in what analysts say is an enviable position amid the crisis. By dint of his past jobs, he can make the case that he is insulated from the taint of the current controversy.
Sloan has spent his career working with corporations and institutional investors, or the finance parts of Wells Fargo -- not the now-tarnished *retail side, where the allegedly fraudulent consumer accounts were manufactured. (*AND where it is reported that Stumpf and associate[s] were doing private platform trading for their benefit using the GCR/RV funds in WF's. We EXPOSED this resulting in Stumpf's phoning us and demanding we remove the article IMMEDIATELY!) That distance should make it easier for the bank’s board to act if it decides that the 63-year-old Stumpf has to step down, said Marty Mosby, an analyst at Vining Sparks in Memphis, Tennessee.
“The backdrop they have is somewhat fortunate,” Mosby said. “Tim Sloan was on the business side of the bank. He was wholesale banking, he wasn’t really retail banking. So they have a little cover."
Political Backlash
Stumpf’s week keeps getting worse: On Thursday, he stepped down from the Federal Reserve’s Federal Advisory Council amid political pressure. Lawmakers also urged the Labor Department to join the list of regulators scrutinizing *the bank’s misconduct. And that’s after Senator Elizabeth Warren called for Stumpf to resign during his Senate Banking Committee testimony, adding to pressure on the CEO as the stock sinks toward its lowest level in more than two years. Still, Mosby said he doubts Wells Fargo’s board will decide to go in that direction.
Warren Buffett, the biggest investor in Wells Fargo, has remained quiet on the controversy, and in an interview with Fox Business Network said that he won’t comment until November. Buffett’s silence on Wells Fargo contrasts with his support of executives including Goldman Sachs Group Inc.’s Lloyd Blankfein and JPMorgan Chase & Co.’s Jamie Dimon when their companies drew regulatory scrutiny.
Oscar Suris, a Wells Fargo spokesman, declined to comment or make Sloan available for an interview.
Everyman's Executive
Both Stumpf and Sloan are longtime employees of Wells Fargo and its predecessors. Stumpf joined in 1982, Sloan in 1987. They share a host of traits -- Midwestern, deliberate, loyal -- not to mention the gray hair and tanned look of a bank CEO. One difference: Sloan’s a golfer, Stumpf prefers bridge.
A former colleague describes Sloan as an every man's executive who wouldn’t be seen wearing a custom-made Italian suit, preferring an off-the-rack brand. That style carries over to his management approach. “He is not someone you would consider a transformational CEO if this company needs to go in a new direction,” said Brian Kleinhanzl, an analyst at Keefe, Bruyette & Woods.
Sloan commutes most weeks to the bank’s headquarters in San Francisco from the eight-bedroom, 5,800 SF house he shares with his wife and three children in San Marino, a tony enclave in Los Angeles county.
Avoiding Picketers
He hasn’t been immune to controversy. In 2011 and 2012, Wells Fargo customers angry about the bank’s mortgage dealings protested at his house. He didn’t answer the door either time, according to local news reports. Over the past decade Sloan has taken on sensitive projects for Stumpf.
In the midst of the financial crisis in 2008, he was one of two senior executives from Wells Fargo’s wholesale division to lead the examination of Wachovia Corp.’s commercial and investment bank. The analysis helped Stumpf get comfortable with the deal, a $12.7 billion transaction that propelled Wells Fargo deeper into investment banking.
In 2011, Sloan stepped into the breach to quiet concerns when Wells Fargo announced the surprise resignation of Chief Financial Officer Howard Atkins for undisclosed personal reasons.
Cleveland Roots
Born in Cleveland, Sloan grew up in the Detroit area, where his father served as a longtime executive at Ford Motor Co. He earned a bachelor’s degree, and then an MBA, from the University of Michigan (and remains a fan of the school’s football and basketball teams today).
After graduation, he landed his first formal job at Continental Illinois National Bank & Trust Co. in 1984, just as bad energy loans were driving the lender into what was then the largest bank collapse in U.S. history. Sloan landed in the workout group. “Everybody should spend some time in workouts,” he told Bloomberg in 2011. “You look at other people’s mistakes, and then you learn from them.”
At Wells Fargo, in the mid 1990s, he helped set up the merchant banking group, which made real estate loans, offered mezzanine debt and occasionally took equity stakes with the bank’s own money, according to a former colleague.
By 2000, he was running capital markets when the bank bought First Security Corp. and picked up a small investment banking business, according to American Banker.
Big Clients
He showed an eye for acquisitions. In 1999, Sloan led Wells Fargo’s purchase of Eastdil Realty LLC. Six years later, the bank bought Secured Capital Corp. and merged the two firms, creating what has become a top U.S. real estate investment bank, Eastdil Secured.
Sloan was named chief financial officer in 2011, the year when the suspect consumer banking behavior is thought to have begun. But as CFO, where he oversaw finance, planning and the like, Sloan was removed from the retail operations. “Though he did have a tenure as CFO when this was going on, he didn’t have business line responsibility,” said analyst Mosby.
Three years later he was named head of the bank’s wholesale banking division, which counts companies -- not consumers -- as clients. In that role, he was parallel to Tolstedt in the executive ranks.
In November 2015 Sloan became Tolstedt’s boss, when his new role as COO and president gave him oversight of her community banking division. By then, the investigation was well underway. Los Angeles had filed its lawsuit claiming improprieties, and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency had found shortcomings in the bank’s sales practices.
Eight months later, Tolstedt was on her way out.
The man assigned to do the messy task: Tim Sloan, the bank’s 56-year-old president, chief operating officer and trusted No. 2 to Chief Executive Officer John Stumpf. As Stumpf recounted for Congress this week, Sloan told Tolstedt that the bank would “go in a different direction." She was soon replaced.It was quintessential Sloan, the quiet fixer, the man called in to clean up messes or help cinch giant acquisitions. He’s also long been considered Stumpf’s likely successor, a view that’s only grown as Stumpf, the CEO, has taken a public beating in recent days. Sloan finds himself in what analysts say is an enviable position amid the crisis. By dint of his past jobs, he can make the case that he is insulated from the taint of the current controversy.
“The backdrop they have is somewhat fortunate,” Mosby said. “Tim Sloan was on the business side of the bank. He was wholesale banking, he wasn’t really retail banking. So they have a little cover."
Political Backlash
Stumpf’s week keeps getting worse: On Thursday, he stepped down from the Federal Reserve’s Federal Advisory Council amid political pressure. Lawmakers also urged the Labor Department to join the list of regulators scrutinizing *the bank’s misconduct. And that’s after Senator Elizabeth Warren called for Stumpf to resign during his Senate Banking Committee testimony, adding to pressure on the CEO as the stock sinks toward its lowest level in more than two years. Still, Mosby said he doubts Wells Fargo’s board will decide to go in that direction.
Warren Buffett, the biggest investor in Wells Fargo, has remained quiet on the controversy, and in an interview with Fox Business Network said that he won’t comment until November. Buffett’s silence on Wells Fargo contrasts with his support of executives including Goldman Sachs Group Inc.’s Lloyd Blankfein and JPMorgan Chase & Co.’s Jamie Dimon when their companies drew regulatory scrutiny.
Oscar Suris, a Wells Fargo spokesman, declined to comment or make Sloan available for an interview.
Everyman's Executive
Both Stumpf and Sloan are longtime employees of Wells Fargo and its predecessors. Stumpf joined in 1982, Sloan in 1987. They share a host of traits -- Midwestern, deliberate, loyal -- not to mention the gray hair and tanned look of a bank CEO. One difference: Sloan’s a golfer, Stumpf prefers bridge.
A former colleague describes Sloan as an every man's executive who wouldn’t be seen wearing a custom-made Italian suit, preferring an off-the-rack brand. That style carries over to his management approach. “He is not someone you would consider a transformational CEO if this company needs to go in a new direction,” said Brian Kleinhanzl, an analyst at Keefe, Bruyette & Woods.
Sloan commutes most weeks to the bank’s headquarters in San Francisco from the eight-bedroom, 5,800 SF house he shares with his wife and three children in San Marino, a tony enclave in Los Angeles county.
Avoiding Picketers
He hasn’t been immune to controversy. In 2011 and 2012, Wells Fargo customers angry about the bank’s mortgage dealings protested at his house. He didn’t answer the door either time, according to local news reports. Over the past decade Sloan has taken on sensitive projects for Stumpf.
In the midst of the financial crisis in 2008, he was one of two senior executives from Wells Fargo’s wholesale division to lead the examination of Wachovia Corp.’s commercial and investment bank. The analysis helped Stumpf get comfortable with the deal, a $12.7 billion transaction that propelled Wells Fargo deeper into investment banking.
In 2011, Sloan stepped into the breach to quiet concerns when Wells Fargo announced the surprise resignation of Chief Financial Officer Howard Atkins for undisclosed personal reasons.
Cleveland Roots
Born in Cleveland, Sloan grew up in the Detroit area, where his father served as a longtime executive at Ford Motor Co. He earned a bachelor’s degree, and then an MBA, from the University of Michigan (and remains a fan of the school’s football and basketball teams today).
After graduation, he landed his first formal job at Continental Illinois National Bank & Trust Co. in 1984, just as bad energy loans were driving the lender into what was then the largest bank collapse in U.S. history. Sloan landed in the workout group. “Everybody should spend some time in workouts,” he told Bloomberg in 2011. “You look at other people’s mistakes, and then you learn from them.”
At Wells Fargo, in the mid 1990s, he helped set up the merchant banking group, which made real estate loans, offered mezzanine debt and occasionally took equity stakes with the bank’s own money, according to a former colleague.
By 2000, he was running capital markets when the bank bought First Security Corp. and picked up a small investment banking business, according to American Banker.
Big Clients
He showed an eye for acquisitions. In 1999, Sloan led Wells Fargo’s purchase of Eastdil Realty LLC. Six years later, the bank bought Secured Capital Corp. and merged the two firms, creating what has become a top U.S. real estate investment bank, Eastdil Secured.
Sloan was named chief financial officer in 2011, the year when the suspect consumer banking behavior is thought to have begun. But as CFO, where he oversaw finance, planning and the like, Sloan was removed from the retail operations. “Though he did have a tenure as CFO when this was going on, he didn’t have business line responsibility,” said analyst Mosby.
Three years later he was named head of the bank’s wholesale banking division, which counts companies -- not consumers -- as clients. In that role, he was parallel to Tolstedt in the executive ranks.
In November 2015 Sloan became Tolstedt’s boss, when his new role as COO and president gave him oversight of her community banking division. By then, the investigation was well underway. Los Angeles had filed its lawsuit claiming improprieties, and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency had found shortcomings in the bank’s sales practices.
Eight months later, Tolstedt was on her way out.
2 comments:
Still not one US banker, CEO, or their bribed politicans in prison. USA is swirling in the toilet bowl, thanks to Bushs, Sorso, Clintons, Obama, Kissinger, Neten-yahoo, Rockerfellers...
You forgot the Rothchilds.
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