Bloomberg, February 6, 2020: Frozen Wells Fargo bonuses show a peril for bankers after crisis
A new religion swept Wall Street after the 2008 crisis: Pay executives with stock, make them wait to collect it and there will be fewer problems.
Now a generation of executives retiring from Wells Fargo & Co. is experiencing what can happen to those payouts when new scandals arise — even for people uninvolved in wrongdoing.
Dozens of former executives have waited, in some cases for years, to collect millions of dollars in stock-linked bonuses, according to people with knowledge of the situation. Behind the scenes, the company’s scandals triggered a series of stringent reviews by both the bank and regulators that must be completed for each payout to proceed.
