Wells Fargo repaid its $25 billion from the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) in part by issuing more than $10 billion in new shares. By issuing new shares to repay its TARP obligations in December 2009, Wells Fargo ended government oversight of its executive compensation.[1]

According to The New York Times, Wells Fargo’s CEO John Stumpf was the highest paid of any financial industry executive in 2009.[2] He received $21.3 million in 2009 total compensation, $6.5 million more than he received in 2007 before the financial crisis unfolded. Of that, more than $10 million was in the form of “retention performance shares” paid after Wells Fargo was free from TARP compensation limits.[3]

When Wells Fargo was subject to TARP, its executives could only receive a base salary and restricted stock. In response to these limits, Wells Fargo paid Stumpf a 2009 cash salary of $900,000 and a stock salary of $4.7 million, a 537 percent increase from 2008. After repaying its TARP obligations, Wells Fargo again changed Stumpf’s salary to $2.8 million in cash, effective March 1, 2010.[4]

Wells Fargo boosted its lobbying expenses to $2.9 million in 2009, a 27 percent increase from the previous year.[5] Wells Fargo lobbied on regulatory reform issues that include consumer protection standards for mortgages, pay for performance, bank risk assessments, a proposed bankruptcy law amendment to allow judges to modify mortgages, derivatives market transparency and legislation on overdraft protection, credit cards and debit card fees.[6]

Stumpf serves on the board of the Financial Services Roundtable that is “strongly opposed” to the creation of a Consumer Financial Protection Agency to regulate mortgages, credit cards and other consumer financial products and services.[7] Several of Wells Fargo’s subsidiaries are members of the Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association, a group that opposes taxation of securities transactions.[8]