Wednesday, September 14, 2016

"Wells Fargo’s Week Just Went From Bad To Preet" (WFC)

From DealBreaker:
Preet.Wells.StumpfWe are in day six of Wells Fargo’s precipitous fall from grace and it’s beginning to seem like the bank is in a self-ideated nightmare without end. And it just keeps getting scarier.

Revelations of bold, dumb and endemic fraud and turnover in its community banking division gave way to reports of oddly-timed golden “retirement” parachutes, gave way to announcements of plans to fix things at a glacial pace, gave way to an eerie silence emanating out of Omaha.

And, sure, next week Wells Fargo CEO John Stumpf is going to go sit in front Congress and take a theatrical verbal lashing, but at least Wells Fargo hasn’t heard anything from Johnny Law…so they’ve got that going for ’em.

Oh wait, what’s that you say, WSJ?
Federal prosecutors are in the early stages of an investigation into sales practices at Wells Fargo & Co. that led to the bank being hit last week with a $185 million fine, according to people familiar with the matter.
Well, “early stages” isn’t the worst thing that Stumpf and Co. have heard this week. And this is a California bank we’re talking about, so it’s not like “He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named” is going to be involved. Sure, Wells Fargo has biffed every opportunity to wriggle out of this staggeringly dumb mess, but it hasn’t even been a week. Surely, he couldn’t be all that interested yet. He only gets involved with JPMorgan, Citi and BofA. And even then he prefers some real blood in the water.

Whatever, all Wells has to worry about are some NorCal US Attorney brahs…
The investigation is being conducted by the U.S. Attorney’s Offices for the Southern District of New York and the Northern District of California, these people said. Prosecutors have yet to decide if any case, should they decide to pursue one, would be along civil or criminal lines, the people said.
Oh SNAP....MORE