Wells Fargo CEO Scharf's pay drops nearly 12% in 2020

[January 30, 2021]    (Reuters) - Wells Fargo & Co Chief Executive Officer Charles Scharf's annual pay fell by about $3 million, or 12%, in 2020, a regulatory filing showed on Friday.

Wells Fargo CEO Charlie Scharf testifies before a House Financial Services Committee on Capitol Hill in Washington, U.S., March 10, 2020. REUTERS/Carlos Barria

Scharf will receive $20.3 million for his work during the year, compared with $23 million in 2019, the bank said. https://bit.ly/3ahptPv

Scharf, who served as a top lieutenant to JPMorgan Chase and Co Chief Executive Jamie Dimon during the financial crisis of 2008, took over the reins at Wells Fargo in 2019.

The fall in Scharf's pay compares with a 36% drop in Goldman Sachs Chief Executive David Solomon's salary and a 20% jump in compensation for Morgan Stanley's top boss James Gorman. JPMorgan held CEO Dimon's annual pay at $31.5 million.

Wells Fargo's board cited the drop in the bank's financial results for 2020 as one of the reasons for Scharf's lower compensation, noting that the results were significantly impacted by the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The bank last year posted its first quarterly loss since 2008 and also saw its profit plunge to just 1 penny per share in the first quarter of 2020. However, Wells Fargo ended the year with a rare quarterly profit beat.

The bank has operated under a dark cloud since 2016 when details emerged about millions of phony accounts employees had created in customers' names without their permission to hit sales targets.

(Reporting by Noor Zainab Hussain in Bengaluru; Editing by Aditya Soni)

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