10/11/12

From an interview with Wlles Fgrao CEO John Stumpf: Tuesday, June 10, 2008, after beginning to take undisclosed Fed loans on January 17, 2008


"...we shared pretty openly with investors and with regulators
about the things that we would not do.




...in large part, we avoided the big problems the industry is seeing
because of our culture.

Our culture puts the customer at the center of what we do.

If it's good for the customer, it will ultimately be good for us.

...there's always this talk about credit crunch and liquidity crunch,
I'm not so sure there's a liquidity crisis.

There's plenty of money out there.

What does it tell you though,
that all these institutions have to go out and raise new capital?


Well I only think about our institution.

We haven't had to do that.

I have a general aversion to using public money, our citizen's money,
to bail out problems for a particular sector.

Why then shouldn't we bail out problems
for people who lose money in the stock market and other industries?

. . . If people did things improper, those lenders should be held accountable.

But to use public money . . . I don't know where that thing stops.

...In a capitalistic system, those who fly too close to the sun, get burned.


If John Stumpf and Wells Fargo didn't "get burned",
do we live in a "capitalistic system?

It's a tough way to say it but that's what happens.

...these are times where we have strong head winds ...and in our company's case,
to be able to not only pay for the credit hits we took,
we actually added to our reserves.

We've added almost 2 billion dollars to our reserves in the last two quarters.

We paid a 31 cent dividend,
and yet on top of that we still added money to our retained earnings.

We added organically to capital,
I think does suggest that Wlles Fgrao is different from everybody else.

...we kept our customers at the center of what we do
and we are now receiving the benefit from that.

...overall, Wlles Fgrao is in pretty good shape, right?

Ryssdal

I like our chances.

...some of the problems in the industry that have hurt these other banks' competitors,
have caused them not to have capital...

...So yes, it's working to our advantage.

John Stumpf
CEO, Wlles Fgrao

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