Thread regarding Wells Fargo & Co. layoffs

I've worked at WF for over 20 years and its sad what has happened to this organization. But even with a new CEO at the helm, we're still in the news every week for doing something wrong. I agree with a prior post, WF will eventually be sold. Feds are making an example of WF.

The Wells Fargo sales culture actually was born out of Norwest who took over Wells and rebranded using the stronger brand of Wells Fargo. That same culture in retail led to overstaffing of branches to push worthless widget based aggressive sales goals. It also incentivized staff to push products that generated more revenue and incentive rather than simpler products that fully met the clients needs at a lower cost. Under Wells, those simpler products did not fill the incentive buckets.

Wachovia’s issue came from the acquisition of GW with a large book of subprime and stated income mortgages. The mark the market rules required huge write downs for loan loss reserves in 2008. When Ken Thompson was outed and replaced by a leader from Goldman Sachs, it was only a matter of time before Wachovia was acquired or merged. Sorry Goldman Sachs, whenever your people arrive, the outcome has been the same in 3 companies I have been with.

They may take over BNY Mellon, given Scharf was there already.

Why would any other bank want to take on this mess?
"Here's a bomb from WW2 that we located. It might explode and it might not explode. How you like to buy it?"

We would be even more too big to fail!

We'll live forever!

If 8 is Great, wouldn't 50 be Nifty!

I gotta' stop reading these posts, I can feel my IQ drop a point every time.

Not a chance. Even after asset cap lifted, SEC wouldnt allow it. However as many have stated, WF going on a spending spree buying up brokerages looks reasonable.

No. Why would that make sense when you can't even perform well at your current size? That would be id–tic.

Wachovia was number 1 in bank customer service for 8 years in a row for a reason. Their downfall was jumping into California with GW for the mortgages to bundle and sell their own CDOs. The problems at WF predated WB in most instance and in other problems it was under legacy WF leaders so don't try to blame Wachovia for the bonehead actions of legacy WF.

never happen. would exceed the 10% deposit limit allowed to banks.

i doubt it, it will be deemed a monopoly and feds will break it up as they did with a lot of companies in the financial industry in 2017-2019. Read the news.

Portions of the bank can be sold. But the two largest businesses, Consumer and what was Wholesale are too large from a deposit perspective to be absorbed by any another bank due to a regulatory maximum on deposit market share.

In order to be sold, customers would have to be scattered among multiple different banks. The only way that happens is if the FDIC has to take control of the bank due to a run.

The bank isn’t going to be sold, it is going to shrink drastically and maybe sell a few pieces.

Turns out that 8 is great was the biggest bull sh– line of all time. Wells Fargo was a flea bag of a company. Remember Jump into January. Wells Fargo bank a Management was preaching that c-ap from the early 2000s.

Wachovia mistake was Golden West. Now that was a piece of California C-ap

The earnings power of WFC franchise with the problems behind it are nearly unrivaled (exception JPM). The cap will eventually lift, expenses trimmed. Who in their right mind would sell one of the highest net profit companies in the country then. Wfc was that Pre 2016 and will be again. It won’t go piece by piece or be taken over , it’s too large. Maybe acquire GS or Schwab once WFC is back to peak operational efficiency and no regulatory hangover Is a possibility although I’d argue the company as is today is too large.

I've been stating sell-off on this site for over a year.

It won't be a merger. It will be a sell-off and/or takeover.

Why is Scharf not invested in the company or its people? Because he and his cronies are systematically breaking it up to sell it in pieces and parts – with the blessing of the Board of Directors.

Face it: Wells Fargo is done. Scharf only accepted the CEO role based on the MONEY he'd be paid and awarded as bonus to bolster stock price via massive layoffs, etc., NOT a desire to turn around the company. The Board didn't select him to care about Wells Fargo.

This is why the Town Halls and communications a transformational CEO would normally hold, to bolster morale and keep employees engaged and informed, are basically NON-EXISTENT.

Employees are pawns. Headcount is a liability. NOTHING will get in the way of Scharf's laser focus to get his monumental bonus (on top of being highest paid CEO among competitors).

All this will be done within 2-3 years. Wells Fargo is going the way of Enron, Arthur Andersen, etc. A dinosaur that shot itself in the foot over and over again – and got what it deserved (extinction).

What really wounded WF was the sales practice scandal and that pretty clearly pre-dates Wachovia.

Wachovia was a disaster. Should have just let Citi scalp their retail banking division and let the Fed dissolve the other pieces of the failed institution.

The fact that Charlie is ditching WF traditions, closing the museum's, and selling off key property hints that they are preparing to sell. Sc-ape everything to the bone and offer it up to the vultures.

I agree. I was thinking G.S as well. Also, Charles Schwab would be #2 on my list. WF will k–l 2 or 3 birds with one Stone. We would be merging with a world class Brokerage business and would rebrand into G.S and leave all Wells baggage behind.

Wells Bought Wachovia in the cheap by taking a lot of Risks which was probably a mistake looking back. You get what you pay for. When I say merge, I mean some1 of equal value or greater value then WFC. This way, we can take their name and leave all the baggage behind.

Heck no. Wachovia was a huge mistake and created many of the problems we face today.